In The East
by Vanya-Deyja
Summary: Atemu the is second son of the Sultan. He returns after three years as ambassador to the West intent on getting his father's blessing for his impending marriage. Unfortunately the proceedings of his visit are complicated and Atemu is forced to broker a peace not only with the court but also with his father's witch, Gem Faher, Yugi. Fem!Yugi, Initial Atemu/Anzu, eventual Atemu/Yugi.
1. Homecoming

Okay, so, new story! Halleluiah! Excitement! This is something new for me, an experiment, so:

PRELIMINARY AUTHOR NOTES:  
1 Updates may switch to fortnightly. The week during which I don't update this will be filled by updating a second story however. So in effect you will still get weekly updates from me just not for a single story~

2 Yugi is a woman in this. I wrote 140 pages of this with Yugi as a boy. All I've done is change pronouns. This is an experiment. This is the _only_ fic where I will have a female Yugi but I felt it fit the story better. I don't like fem!Yugi fics as a rule so if you don't either maybe give it a chance?

3 This is a kind of Historical Romance. It is an AU not tied to any specific period of history or a specific set of Earth countries. I know I can't do a story entirely 100% historically accurate so I won't pain you by trying. So think of this as…realistic fantasy style?

* * *

**Chapter 1: Homecoming**

He sighed through his clenched teeth as he strode into the private presence of his great father. Atemu had so hoped that when he returned to the East valiant, victorious, and almost married that he wouldn't return after three seasons to find that the little white witch was still in his ancestral home.

Yet there, like a bleeding orifice, sat the little pale devil on his father's footrest bare toes peeking out along the tiles as the woman sewed. A tiny white shirt, pale as her own fingers, sat spread being slowly stitched up in the foundling's lap and Atemu's first, gut twisting, thought was that the foreign plague was pregnant with a Sultan's bastard.

"Atemu," his father had sagged, and even now his booming voice strained gently as he extended his hands.

His fingers looked thinner under the fat gold rings and though the Ethiopian in him kept his skin bitterly dark like tree roots his face had developed and odd assortment of nooks and crannies. Atemu's uneasy realization came then, while glancing to his own gallant and taunt forearms, that his father was getting very old.

"Majesty," Atemu inclined his chin.

"Ah," he sighed contented for the moment, slouching back to a comfortable slackness supported by the tension of the seat. "Well then how did those sickly Brits keep you?"

"The people of Britton are quite charming I've found," Atemu attempted diplomatically, reeling back his tongue. "Once you decipher the mannerism and enter into their loving trust they prove to be exceptionally wise companions."

"Your predecessors told me they'll eat nothing as the gods intended it," his father grunted. "Are they still so backwards?"

"They certainly insist on thorough preparations of their food," Atemu tightened, insulted via proxy. He felt vaguely flipped that his father, who ruled such a savage country, could be so uneducated as to pester upon a smarter one. "They believe, on good medicine, that cooking is the only way to unlock the nutritional value of-"

His father laughed. Atemu tried not to sneer in his quest to regain his voice but the little white witch had looped her sewing and pulling the needle to her teeth bit the thread free. It was distracting. Every sinewy, exposed, motion of the supposedly invisible creature made Atemu's stomach curdle. A mission across the wide seas had done nothing to lessen the discomfort and disgust the creature inspired. The Brits had told him stories of the gypsies, from which his father's employee descended, as queer, ungodly, folk.

"-_Of_," Atemu repeated stubbornly, "their food stuffs."

"Then theirs must be weak crops," his father snorted.

"Not at all." Atemu insisted but was dismissed as, ignoring him, his father twittered over the armrest of his seat.

"Now, now, are we done?" He chuckled down to the witch who flexing, startled, gazed up to him in the dim ivory light of the afternoon. Atemu's father extended one dark hand. "Show me?"

The witch smiled, passed the tiny bundle and exposing it under his thick, weakening, fingers Atemu's father outlined the craftsmanship of the delicate shirt. A certain degree of apparent tenderness crept into the face of his father's advising whore.

"Such lovely skill," he sighed, "if I weren't half blind I could appreciate it better. Do you know, Atemu, your sister's to have her first child?"

The Sultan came back to his son but Atemu only noticed him a second later too transfixed by watching the witch reclaim the morsel and continue pulling another into her lap. He gripped the hilt of his sword tighter and fingers almost quaking he stood stiffer as he spoke next.

"I didn't," he confessed, his eyes couldn't quite connect.

There were embers bubbling, burning, inside him from years before. The witch making swaddling for his clan, the witch so close to the beating heart of the nation, the pale death that could sicken and curse a whole new generation…

"Aye, she is," the old Sultan tapped his lips with one gold painted fingernail. "Good strong husband she has now; a wealthy kinsman. Reminds me, you know, that your younger brother Zarzak tells me you've bought a white mistress from the Brits."

Atemu's stomach yanked gaze realigned steeply from the witch at his father's feet to the gruff, guttural, quality of the voice escaping the Sultan's chapped lips.

Damn it all.

"She's no mistress Majesty," Atemu's fingers flexed on his blade for comfort. "She's the daughter of a fine nobleman who has courteously agreed to give me her hand."

"You're my son," he grunted hoarsely, fingers flexing in the same gesture on the arms of his seat. "You don't order your own marriages boy."

"I am a grow man." Atemu specified carefully. "I am perfectly capable-"

"I don't give a_ piss_ in the wind if you're a pig in a sty." The Sultan spat. "It's not your business. It's business for your father and your kin and your gods. Not the white ones of Europe or their sickly, converted, women. Unless you dragged your own sorry arse into this world you ought to show me better fealty."

This was not how Atemu had hoped this would unfold.

"Send her back."

"If you would just meet with her Majesty even you will find-"

"You will not parade some_ harlot_ through my doors." He smacked the bare centre of his palm against the wood and his witch flinched. "I don't care how fine her tits are. I won't stand for some strumpet prancing beside your brothers' wives. I certainly won't stand for any bitch who could be Sultana to come from savages."

"She is a fine woman," Atemu retaliated sharply, "and I fail to see how it would make any difference to slander the state of the house with foreigners when _you_ already do."

The witch stood delicate bare toes disappearing under the trail of the saris traditional to their homeland. As she twisted round the plush footstool to slink away with her eyes averted the Sultan grasped her tiny, narrow, elbow in his hand. The witch tried to pass him like an embarrassed courtesan leaving the creature's jewellery glittering and clinking across her frame but still Atemu's father insisted.

"Stay," the old man rasped his fingers flexing, and chin down the white witch made no motion to glance over the yoke of her shoulder. "If he wants to insult his ancestors _he_ can leave."

Atemu's stomach sizzled over, bile hitting heat and almost drew his blade as his father's milky eyes settled upon him pointedly.

"_Out_."

Shooed, like a dog at his master's feet.

Atemu could've screamed.

* * *

Anzu, with that soft doe-eyed peaches and cream complexion of hers twittered up to her feet upon his entrance to the tavern where he had left her with his steward. She wrung her fingers, forced a smile, and Atemu suspected she'd been wringing them all morning. A marriage to a prince, a second born, was a very good union for the daughter of an earl.

"Did you find any peace this afternoon Sweetheart?" he attempted to greet her jovially, taking both her hands into his to kiss the backs of her palms. "I trust everyone's been kind?"

"Exceptionally," she promised half giving at the knees as she squeezed his hands, "and his Majesty?"

Atemu sighed, held it in a little.

"His Majesty…" he dithered, kissing Anzu's hands once more for the diversion as her creeks tried not to fall in the trained way of a European woman. "He will need some convincing. He's a very stubborn old traditionalist. He's simply never met a fine woman like yourself."

"So I…" She faltered a little but doing her best to appear otherwise unafraid laughed weakly to his fingers. "I don't suppose I am coming with you to court then?"

"Not for the night," he withered, "but I will leave you very comfortably established here, as befits a woman of your status, and in time I shall soothe father to more modern ways of thinking. At worst my brother, the future king, is sure to understand and support us."

He added a gallant certainty to his voice but quite frankly nothing in the slippery world of intermarriages and backward glancing cultures was ever certain. Kings married and abdicated, or annulled, or were tossed to the wolves in civil wars and no man or scholar could count the many good members of the gentler sex who'd been wronged by suitors who'd led them astray.

"I'm glad," Anzu promised sweetly.

"I promise you," Atemu assured her, "we will be married. We just have to be patient."

"I know," she nodded, "I know. I'm sorry; I'm too sensitive. I just worry that someone else will sweep you off your feet and I shant be able to compete…Men can win ladies back with swords and so but all I have are coy glances and patience." A sad smile escaped.

"No one shall ever infect my heart," he chuckled, then scoffed. "Certainly not here. My homeland hasn't changed since my absence unfortunately. It is still a land of heathen savages marrying many women and stuffing their harems."

"That's very sad," Anzu sympathized in the careful way of her type, never too boisterous or opinionated. In Europe a man only had one wife to discipline, adore or loathe after all. They had to be cleverer creatures. "You've told me your father is a very kind man. I'm surprised the finer points of God and the great work of Christ haven't reached him."

"No," Atemu was closeted in shame really, a converted Moor. "We'll find no good Christian fellows here. Not while my father nests with a witch."

"A _witch?_" Anzu paled, almost drew back. It was a word the gentler sex repelled and feared in good measure. Witches prayed on the ordered, on the good, on healthy sons and happy marriages and the contentment of others of their same sex and condition in the world. To be called one or to fall victim to one was a nightmarish, very real, concern in almost any continent.

"I suspect," Atemu grunted distastefully, "given how she's enchanted the Sultan. I can only hope my brother knows better than to fall into the company of sinners."

"Your poor father…"

"If I'd had my way the devil would've been tossed out bloody and dirty five seasons ago."

* * *

Qazzadara was an exceptionally noble kind of man. Yugi knew from the portraits that her soft bellied Sultan had once been an exceptionally handsome and fearsome war lord claiming at least four princedoms under him from Jursa to Hurzef. Given the option, given the craft, Yugi still would've chosen to meet him withering in his eighties than in the prime of his youth wherein the man could've swept Yugi off with very impure intentions. He was a gentler soul now, an aging father and a tender grandfather, in such a way that no young bull could really appreciate.

Yugi wished, every morning and especially every night, when she was kissed on the brow and sent to bed that the poor thing would live another month, another half a year, another rotation…

Her eyes must've glassed, dimmed off into dreamlessness, because chuckling the old sympathetic fellow squeezed Yugi's hand and drew her back into the warm scented swirl of the court. Yugi's eyes flittered from the domed ceilings, the mandalas, to his thick pitch hand and smiled as the Sultan patted her fingers.

"Which spirit are you off with now?" He joked.

"Seb and Njet," Yugi replied dryly in nonsense syllables which never failed to draw a hoarse pelt of laughter for her trouble. "You, Majesty?"

"Ruing my age," he murmured coyly. "If I was thirty years younger, seven hells, if I was _ten-"_

"You'd be off warring and fucking Ennochians," Yugi slapped the back of his hand, to divert the real sincerity of the promise. "I know you."

"You do," he chuckled, taking one of Yugi's fingers to kiss. "You're a sweet child."

"And you're a sweet man," she sympathised.

"A corpse almost," he scoffed, "with a _bastard_-"

"No, please," Yugi pushed releasing the withered crone's hand to stroke irritably at her temples. "Don't bring him into tonight. There's no point. We should be talking about Zarzak, Seth, Mahado, Mana'jet…" she flicked her wrist, bringing up a smile from the fathoming cold bottom of her belly. "Did you know Mana felt the babe kick today? She's absolutely aglow."

"I know too," Qazzadara leant towards her from the throne, clinking aside the scrappily glittering dinner plates as he gestured over the swirl of dancers towards one draped wall. "That Kisara and Sesset and the rest of that whole herd are looking for you."

"Oh dear," Yugi grinned cheekily. "Should we make them wait?"

"No, no, not tonight," Qazzadara patted her elbow. "Go tend my children, the great hopeless flock."

"What's good for gander is good for goose, eh?" Yugi laughed tutting her tongue, pushing back to her feet in such a way that her legs hardly tensed till her wooden heels clacked the tiles.

"Yes and I don't want you here, near the cutlery, when Atemu rears his stubborn arse this evening." The Sultan snorted sourly. "If he brings the whore, I swear to you-"

"You'll send him away and won't throw anything," Yugi half pleaded half ordered. The Sultan seemed gruffly sceptical. "It's bad for your health." She added with a coy little smirk. "Beat your son when you're well."

* * *

Kisara was the primary wife of Qazzarada's third son, Sesset the primary wife of the fifth prince, while Mana'jet was stationed at court as Qazzadara's eldest daughter by the now dead Sultana. They were all quite competent adult women skin flourishing in beautiful blooms from cinnamon ripple to Ethiopian pitch. Attending them was always a cluster of other such noble wives and ladies. They were a clattering collective of rich highborn women who organized the business of households, children, stables, dowries and inheritances while the men turned themselves to politics, trade and war.

Traditionally the powerful women of the court were referred to as the Great Lesser Council and without the lesser, sweeter, sex it was no great religious or cultural secret that the entire Eastern princedom would fail to function under the fingers of the menfolk.

Kisara was quite the wiry woman, noble tonight in silver thread and bitter navy. Flashing a long stretch of fine clavicle she handed Yugi her precious eldest son, still in swaddling clothes, for the gypsy to coddle into her chest. Yugi twisted the babe in her arms, clucked her tongue, and rocking kissed the dark nose against her slender arm.

The chatter sort of rushed and folded over one's self in a hive like this. Yugi had spent so many months with her head down, listening, absorbing… till her council became steadily more relevant and her position warily respected. Now she was clan. Now she was a notable lady with alliances and influence. Now the uncomfortable starkness of her foreign complexion was forgotten under five years of grand intermingling histories.

Mana'jet, _Mana_ when they were lazy, held her steady hand to her heavy belly as it sunk between her knees and stroking it seemed so completely at peace Yugi felt soothed. Wives here were so easy going, so natural, as they supped their milk and honey ignoring the poisons of harder liquors. Women like Mana were even easy going pregnant.

"So what do you suppose it is?" Sesset slunk down to lounge like the grand European lords from Yugi's offshore adolescents.

"A boy I think," Mana hefted languidly, thick tawny hair slackly looped over one lovely lustrous shoulder. "Kicks hard. Yugi? Predictions?"

"Either way," Yugi bounced Kisara's son on her knee, "you've got strong hips, you take to it well, you'll have many strong."

"Aye," Kisara raised her glass, "we'll have a shipment of little princes."

Mana chortled lightly, like a lark, and clinking the tips of their glasses good humouredly took another sip as she cradled her belly. Yugi smiled, at ease with the intrusively blunt nature of all their conversations. Adjusting the slip of her sari off her shoulder she turned Kisara's son round again in her arms. She lifted up the back of the child's swaddling, remarked along the little one's spine, and in her natural way checked for faults.

"Good one that boy," Sesset remarked over the babe to Kisara. "You did marvellously."

"How's my stock look today though?" Kisara leant into her knees, clucking to Yugi with a cock of her elegant chin.

"Well fed, fat and lazy." Yugi held the boy aloft a little over her head, adoring. "He'll be hopping soon enough. Good long legs."

Sesset chuckled and extending her arms, without any search for permission from the mother, reached to take the babe from Yugi who likewise handed it over freely without Kisara's notice or care. They were kin and unlike lesser courts Yugi found no assumption running awry that all members of the feminine kind were out to do each other harm or mischief for individual gain.

"So, Gem Faher," Mana leaned into Yugi, calling with that older than sand endearment that had sprouted for Yugi from the ruling house in place of an official title. "Wahjet."

The women, the wives, nodded with knowing little mumbles. An important marriage was on the cards. Wahjet was the son of duke, at the right age to have his first wife and far too silly to be allowed to pick her himself. So they were down to business already.

Yugi snapped her fingers and a lower member of the court handed her her playing cards so across the table, along the gilded windows, she could stack the numbers. Playing cards were trifle, token, things they used to keep track of expenses while they plotted these new connections. Each card was part of a tally they constructed to plot out a man's pros and cons; birth, fortune, position…from which they construed an appropriate wife for him. It was a map.

"He's a firstborn," a lesser wife added up first without any fear of implementing her voice.

Yugi lay down the king of hearts in one corner. It was quite a point in any man's favour.

"For fifteen he has his medals," Kisara approved, as Yugi lay down another card under the king. "Overdue for a good primary; out on the cataracts the bride ought to be hardy, someone we can trust not to lose themselves in a storm. Heavy finances and good food sit out there near the Babylonians."

Yugi casually stacked the cards, in tight easy piles, as the mumbling began.

"Lurek," another lady puffed at the brittle beach wood pipe between her pouting lips, "has a lovely daughter about the age. Good blood, no intermingling relatives. She'd make a fine wife."

"Hmm," Yugi nodded.

Interbreeding was a delicate but rather important religious concern in a society where a man would have several wives and a son several possible mothers. Hence several possible extended families. More than one marriage had been misplaced or cancelled abruptly after a mistaking of which wife had borne which son.

A bearer brought them another round of drinks, swept up the plates and refilled them with fresh finery. Every studded, pierced, slave boy in the ranks could tell when the women had closed in to plot in the same way any beast on the savannah could smell blood in the stagnant air weaving through the reeds by the river. Like Prussian matchmakers they detailed, they weighed, counting, reducing whole families to stock. The only man who could intervene upon the organization of a union was a religious high elder or the Sultan; whose hand in international affairs raised the rank of his son's status and concern to a broader spectrum.

Yugi considered the spread layout, humming as her fingers traced;

"Miss Yusil?" She recommended her vote.

Mana bowed towards her to speak but cocking her chin up paused.

Yugi watched, kept her eyes on the level but felt the whole temperate composition of the air change and pushing as her hair reclined into the coldness of the window pane.

Atemu was here.

Yugi could downright smell it. Tension, whispering, the wives perked with a new cunning purpose.

Did Atemu know yet that…? Doubtful. If Qazzadara had no chance to tell Atemu the entire turn of events this afternoon then it was likely he hadn't sent anyone else with the message since. The Sultan would announce it to the second born himself or else leave it to Mahado his first born perhaps?

The wives, princesses and highest born of the women had already considered trajectories by now in the lavish forays of the grand central court. They turned a little, some of them, towards Atemu. Puffed up their children to go greet him and shuffling the cards left in her fingers Yugi asserted her eyes upon Mana's beautifully arched shoulder. It wasn't her place, wasn't her fortune, to make eye contact with the angry sprite of a princeling. Qazzadara and Mahado may have favoured Yugi these past years, kept her safe, but the river was switching courses soon.

The incense wafting up thick and pale from the centre of the room to the lush gold emblazoned mandalas of the glorious rainbow ceiling obscured Yugi's view as the prince, much too European in his dress, skirted the first layers of grand silk curtains into the more intimate fold of the high court.

There were layers, notes and mannerisms in every part of the palace. Yugi knew by now every ceremonial inch of the high arched window she leant herself into.

Silver and gold embroidery glinted on saris and sailor cut trousers that rustled towards new prey in thick, splendid, colours. Jewellery, clinking masses of fine wrought antiques spread on whole bodies, sung in harmonic notes of pure percussion. They were ready and waiting, all of them, with golden glinted eyes in the perfectly erotic low light of the East.

Atemu must've been swaying between bodies, greeting. The rumble of the sitars had picked up again. The Sultan would've waved his hand for it and the pan flutes to resume. Obviously Atemu had not brought his European mistress from the bay or there would've been an uproar.

Yugi caught his voice drawing closer and shuffling her eyes flickering to Sesset was handed the babe once more to coddle in Yugi's lap as she crossed one knee daintily over the other. It was a wordless covering of Yugi's presence. Mana took the cards from her to shuffle and lowering her voice Yasil, Sesset and another made a game of pretending to be scheming. The real talk would happen between the harems in the high point of the sun, tomorrow no doubt, when they'd eat cold slices of lunch. For now, with a prince to bait and spy, they'd play at talking about anything.

"Mana'jet," a handsome voice greeted kindly.

Yugi turned her face more towards the babe, stroked the cheek and pinched the nose of the shielding pup. Trying to pretend she didn't exist.

"Brother," Mana waddled up warmly, opening her arms.

"Nay, sit, sit," Atemu hushed skimming gently between the women to come to her side and enfold her in an embrace. "You look well dear one?"

"Fit as a horse," she swore grinning, grasping at his hand and pressing it to her navel. "I'd guess you have another nephew too."

"May the stars be kind I should hope," Atemu kissed the height of her cheek bone, patting the belly. "Your husband is a good fit?"

"Charming," she chuckled wiry, "I picked him myself."

Atemu took the joke with grace but it lacked the real sound of pleasure as if something about the suggestion bothered him.

"Kisara," he inclined his head as was customary, "sister-second mine."

"My prince," she extended her hand across the piled sweetmeats, abandoned bracelets and scattered cards. Atemu kissed it.

"Yugi," he grunted cordially, sighing; "as lovely as always."

Yugi rather inclined her eyes to the man's honey cheeked face and replied with the very same courtier's smile her glance never really striking the face entirely.

"Majesty," she answered kindly enough, endearing enough as she squeezed the babe. They would just pretend Atemu hadn't called her a foreign whore in so many words this afternoon.

"A nephew of mine?" Atemu supposed gesturing over the child. There was something subtle in his voice that suggested he rather disliked Yugi holding the son.

"Indeed," Sesset clapped her hands, reaching to tug at Atemu's wrist, "but what's this you're wearing? Aren't you absolutely sordid in that dear Prince?"

"Not at all," he laughed weakly, "it's all the fashion in Europe."

"Unsightly men they must have to cover them up so much!" Kisara joked.

Atemu smiled, pursed his lips, but couldn't make a witty reply. He'd come back all the more sour and sensitive had he? He'd been quite displeased with the state of court when he left. Qazzadara had hoped ambassadorial duties in the Brittons would put him off his piss and vinegar but if anything…

There was something distinctly European in him now; judging, indoctrinated. Those were the sighs of a converted man before savage non-believers in a setting where polite formality wouldn't allow him the mercy of complaining or correcting. Yugi nestled with the babe. She'd never liked the old one lord religions of Europe. The polytheism of the East seemed sweeter, more reasonable, to her than the cold word of Fren and Prussian orthodox churches. Apparently Atemu had received the opposite impression.

"Brother!"

A saving voice called across the tiles and the high lavish ladies round Yugi, including Yugi actually, all sat higher. Mahado, the crown prince, turned his younger sibling with that jovial, glorious, smile of his and generously swept Atemu up into a tight embrace. Atemu for the first instance laughed honestly and charitably squeezed his brother in the slapping embrace of two real warriors.

"My Majesty!" He chuckled taking Mahado's hand tight in his. "You look so lean!"

"Our dear Majesty has been fasting," Kuli praised, "he has even shaved."

"Why yes," Atemu nicked his brother's chin, "so I can see!"

"And you," Mahado slapped his shoulder, "you have transformed yourself! You're neigh unrecognizable in that!"

Atemu shrugged, dismissed it.

"All the same, all the same," Mahado chuckled. "Mana has become more beautiful don't you think?"

"Aye," Atemu smiled, generously affectionate. "She's a lady now."

"Not a mud scrapper," Mahado teased as cawing his sister leant across the table to slap their knees. "Yugi too, somehow, is even lovelier than yesterday."

"Ha!" Yugi snorted good humouredly and knew well enough that, to Mahado, she could smile widely, sweetly, and crossing lines meet the crown prince's eye in a way perfectly filial if not intimate.

"Don't you think?" Mahado offered Atemu the chance to lighten his reputation.

"I was just saying actually," Atemu forced a grin tartly, teeth instinctively tightening and Yugi refused to turn away now Mahado was so locked upon her.

With her eyes Yugi hoped somehow to mouth, to communicate, that the crown prince ought never leave court, ought never change so as not to abandoned them in the clutches of… She sighed, eyes deepening to dreamless worries and caught in that tide she was back to nestling the babe for shelter in the storm. She could barely think of what would happen when Qazzadara died and Mahado…

"So, dear little brother," Mahado joked, "has his Majesty told you the good news yet?"

"No your Majesty," Atemu joked upon the hierarchy of titles. "Though I have some for you."

"Well, well, as the oldest _I_," Mahado gestured between them, "get to go first."

Oh no, Yugi's eyes flittered up, not here. Mahado you great gentle giant not here before the whole court where Yugi hardly trusted Atemu to school his expressions well enough.

"I suppose you won that," Atemu snorted. "What is it then? Finally married I hope?"

"No the kinder sex has lost me entirely," Mahado grinned throwing up his goblet, "within the month I'm to the sanctuary of Juras."

"A pilgrimage?" Atemu suggested coyly but the concern was apparent in how his posture stiffened.

"No, no," he denied easily. "Off to the cloth; to serve the gods rather than the house of my father."

"A _shaman?_" The younger prince sickened with his feigned aloofness, supposed interest. "Lost a bet have ye?"

"Won one," Mahado offered his drink and forcing a chuckle Atemu took the glass to drown it. "Shall I tell you everything? Someone ought to escort you to his Majesty?"

"Yes," Atemu grinned palely, "by all means."

Yugi caught, before turning away, the flicker of a glance Atemu shot her; suspicion, anger, all of it violent. Yugi passed the babe back to Sesset and taking up the cards found it hard suddenly to swallow. The day Qazzadara died Yugi would have two options: flee or safely marry and unless she could convince a younger sibling of the prince she rather doubted a marriage would endear her enough to Atemu for safety's sake.

* * *

1 You'll find a lot of good old fashioned racism in here!  
2 More of Yugi next time~  
3 For quick reference;  
- Atem's Father = Sultan Qazzadara  
-Eldest brother= crown prince Mahado  
-Second prince = Atem  
-Third prince married to Kisara  
-Eldest Princess Mana'jet or Mana  
-Fifth Prince married to Sesset  
3 Next week will see us posting chapter 2 of this. The week after might see it moving to a fortnightly update schedule as a new fic beings simultaneously. We'll see what happens!

**Next Time**: Atemu is forced into an unexpected position, Yugi frets amongst the princes, and along the river Anzu has an opportunity to impress the Sultan.


	2. Formalities

Hey again Gorgeous ones!

* * *

**Chapter 2: Formalities**

"You better not be implying-" Atemu murmured hotly as Mahado turned him about like a ship at sea under the hands of the wind.

"What's wrong with being Sultan?" He teased, soothed. "I have to abdicate to someone."

"Abdicate to Seth." He hissed. "He matches the qualifications."

"He's not as responsible," Mahado whispered, slipping his drink off to a slave. "He's never seen the outside world. He doesn't know politics like you do. He's better with Kisara managing the great lands for you."

"I'm not doing it," Atemu rasped tightly, "I'm going back to Europe."

"Your family needs you."

"You're abandoning them."

"I'm going to the_ gods_." He clarified.

"Then don't ask me to do something against mine." Atemu tugged his jacket hard to lull them to a sudden stop before the head feasting table. Their eyes met, a flicker of recognition passed over his sibling and sighing Mahdo shook his head.

"You converted?"

"I found faith in the true God."

"Oh don't-"

"Then don't _you_," he grunted harshly.

"Atemu," Mahado tried to nullify the rising heat, aware of the odd glance from their father. "Be reasonable."

"We are the eldest of twenty-four. Pick a brother."

"It would be a _grave_ insult to do that to you or Seth and I won't do it."

"What about my happiness?" Atemu snapped. "Don't give me semantics about duty either."

"You can have your woman," he hushed, squeezing the smaller elbow in his hand. "Take her as a secondary wife and no one will complain. How could they? You need international brides. You'll have the power to do it. Keep her till father dies if you must. If she loves you she'll wait."

"She believes, very strongly, that her God created marriage as the union between a man and _one_ wife." He murmured. "I am not going to force her to compromise that."

"She'll be married to a King. Women have compromised more for less in Europe."

_"Don't _insult her heritage."

"Don't insult your own."

Their father beckoned, time up.

Atemu's boots dug a little too hard on the tiles and gritting they pushed in together to approach him. He had thoughts of desertion, of slipping onto the next boat out of the delta, but Easterners and Europeans alike rather disapproved of turncoats in noble households unless said act was taken for a greater good. Until Atemu's personal vendetta proved for the greater good of the nation his brother's quest for a god, even a heathen one, took greater precedence.

* * *

Yugi stayed with the wives for the evening. She held babies, read palms, sat with the younger ladies and unmarried girls who whispered up close to her to ask for advice on matters of health and spirit. She was something of a doctor. She'd received more of a training here with the Eastern texts but the basic grasp of soul and body wellbeing had been imbued in her during a childhood wandering the Romani.

She didn't fashion herself, officially, as a physician here however. Nor, actually, did she present herself formally as Qazzadara's lover or mistress because she wasn't. Whatever Atemu might assume Yugi was not, nor had she ever been, a whore on this shore or any other.

She was the Sultan's favourite lady at court and given the king's primary wife had long died, his secondaries sent to harem, Yugi replaced the queen de-facto but unofficially. She was allowed to give council and opinion among the important wives of court mainly because she'd endeared herself not for anything else. Not even Qazzadara could force Yugi's opinion to be considered among the grand wives in council after two thousand years of eastern traditions.

Yugi did however make a living with the sultan. None of this was to say she didn't. She had been hired from the delta to come here, she had been paid handsomely for her services and Qazzadara had left conditions in his will to the effect of Yugi's happy preservation. What had for Yugi once been a brief stint of adventure had become a steady life. What she meant by all of this was to qualify that she was not a doctor and she was not a whore. If she was to bang out of all of Atemu's wicked assumptions she would add she was not a witch either but the word had a gentle ring of truth to it in a childish way.

Either way, nonsense aside, Yugi made her living in private.

She came to the sultan that night to earn her keep after Atemu had left from private council with the sultan and the crown prince in a flourish. She had no doubts however that, without any payment, she would spend most of the night listening to the Sultan's thoughts on his second born son given Atemu's exit.

"He's a devil," the aging warlord hissed, "the boy's lost his soul and his great mind in those soppy, pissy, seas."

Yugi arranged herself quietly, with one of her books, in a seat across from the man by the empty hearth where incense mumbled over grey remnants of firewood.

"He's your son," Yugi murmured, "I'm sure he loves you."

The Sultan moaned.

"If only…" he sighed, bitter and tired into the palm of his hand. Something about the gesture made him seem dreadfully weak and Yugi's heart twisted.

"You'll make something of it in the morning," Yugi promised, hand reaching for the man's lap. She didn't like the briefness of the touch.

Still resting his aging face into his palm Qazzadara's second hand came to rest tightly on Yugi's. He sat hunched in his seat and, unable to pull her hand away with her chest so tight, Yugi surrendered to slip from her seat and settle on her knees by the sultan's feet.

"It'll all be well," Yugi whispered up towards his face, "it will be."

"Oh child…" he mumbled absently, fingers drifting up to stroke Yugi's head delicately.

Atemu could insult her, a dozen men could do likewise, but Yugi was no whore. She had never kissed the sultan, had been quite disgusted by him upon their first meeting as a matter of fact and all the love that sat between them now was filial, paternal, if perhaps intimate. Yugi was a voice to whisper to, a confessor, these days. She was a fake wife, a fake baby girl, but she had never, _ever_, been improper or vile or coital with the Sultan. To suggest they had something so bitterly disgusting hurt Yugi.

"He will not see sense, he'll drag the whole wicked world down with him," Qazzadara bemoaned.

"No," Yugi hushed, "he's a smart man. He loves his family. Not even he's selfish enough to leave you all abandoned."

"He refuses to do anything unless he can marry his harlot, he wants to take only one wife," the old man scoffed. "It's wretched and _weak._ He doesn't understand or he does and…"

"Let him marry her then, let him have his bit of love," the smaller pleaded. "What does it matter? He'll be a wise, frugal, king. We'll make up for an uneducated queen with your daughters. If this is all the payment he wants it's hardly the most selfish thing to ask for."

"I can't imagine it," the Sultan murmured exhausted, "I can't imagine letting him… consorting in this transformation of… he's changed. He's not my boy anymore. He's foreign. He's filthy. He's a disgrace to the house of my fathers-"

"No, no," Yugi pressed, "_shh_, hush. You'll regret it in the morning. Don't say that Love."

"If you'd heard what he said to me tonight," the man hissed, "if he had… By the gods what he said to you this afternoon! Before me! I-"

"Shh, shh, please," Yugi pestered rising up on her knees to reach tight, desperate, for both of the man's hands. "He's young. His blood's hot with all this romance. It'll pass. You were wild once too. Ignore him for now. Let Mahado help you make sense of it in the morning. Sit with me for now. Love…"

The man sighed, slumping, and hunched so he looked every bit his age. Poor, withered, like he was it… Yugi could hardly stand it.

"Let me go on like we usually do," she begged softly, "it'll be alright. Let's have our night."

"Yes," the Sultan patted her cheek weakly. "Read then little one. Go on. Let me have that much."

"Should I stay here?"

"Yes," the arm folded round Yugi's shoulders at the man's feet, "stay near me tonight. My old heart's weak. I might need the clerics."

"Always," Yugi kissed his forearm in passing, "always darling."

He was such a sweet man, a strong man. Yugi had never seen better than this king or his family. Yugi had never known greater kindness than in this country. The very destruction of this oasis ached her, burned her, like the lining of her inner stomach was being branded.

She fetched her book, tucked her hair, and turning so she could lay the old European thing across her lap rested her side into the Sultan's leg and her head into the man's knee. She swallowed, her throat caught, and tried to find that steady mother's voice of hers-

"_There once was a wood in a very dense land that was populated solely by a species of creatures called the Old-Oaks_…"

* * *

Atemu hardly slept. He'd returned to their rooms at the inn by the docks, the rooms that cost him a crown a night, and sighing through his collar had shrugged everything off in the uncomfortable heat of the mud brick room. The sheets in a shambles, sweaty, Anzu rolled over upon his whispering entrance to the bed and reached for him.

He could taste the softness of the court drinks, smell the musk of his own sweat and the sweeter tang of her peeling off perfume as he slid his arms round her. She pressed plush into him, soft bosomed out of her trappings, and hair unpinned it fell delicately scented and thick under his mouth. He held her, too tired to speak, and her hands settled about his waist as she dozed aware of him yet barely conscious.

In the morning his toes were damp under hers as she rolled away and he pulled himself from the creaking bed. He glanced over her shoulder. The women here weren't as sweet as Anzu, weren't as shy, and there was something very honourable about being a man trusted to lie asleep with a cautious woman.

The boy from downstairs brought up breakfast on a tray and Atemu shrugged him towards the table with the curtains still pulled round the bed.

When the child vanished Anzu eased her toes onto the floor and, peaking out, yawned into her open palm carefully.

"Sleep well dear?" Atemu offered, stirring the milk.

"I think I shall have to adjust to the air here," she shrugged with a lazy kind of smile, trudging towards the seats. "You love?"

"I think," he sighed, "I can't remember if I slept or not. It's a haze to me."

"The streets and the buildings make different, queer, noises in the night." She sympathised reaching for something off the tray. Her hand paused, drew back, as she seemed to realize she knew not where to start or what was what.

Taking pity Atemu spread something mild on a chunk of flattened, mealy, bread and passed it her. She noticed a second later that his hand was aloft and snorting thanked him gently before attempting it.

"How was dinner with your kinsfolk at court?" She asked without a shadow of resentment. She was a patient woman thank God.

"Not so well unfortunately, my brother gave me rather unexpected news," he muttered.

"Is he alright?"

"Oh he's fine," Atemu chortled though the sound caught in his throat. "He's abdicating to become a shaman in one of the desert sanctuaries of Juras. The Sultan intends to make me next in line."

"That's…" Anzu seemed caught. By all ordinary reason it was marvellous and yet not here. "What do you think?"

"It gives him and the court a much greater say in whom I marry," Atemu heaved miserably, "and unfortunately it means I would have to stay here. Mahado will leave soon and my father is getting on in years. He'll want me here to teach me the ropes and the specifics."

"Perhaps it's a good thing," she supposed. "You'd make a marvellous king. It might just be what this country needs. I'm sure it and the people are lovely but, if they're as you've always said, then they're innocently unconverted. You could make a great Christian nation."

"It complicates everything," he sighed.

"Just the marriage," she muttered as if the thought didn't terrify her, "and a whole nation is more important than one minor wedding."

She would be destitute, they were both aware, if Atemu didn't marry her. He had her father's permission and she had travelled unchaperoned with him now. Unless they married, soon at that, the assumption alone that she was no longer a virgin would utterly devastate any continued attempts to betroth her elsewhere. If she left Atemu now she would return to the Brits to spend her life living off the charity of her brothers.

Atemu could bear the image no more than he could stand the concept of her marrying anyone else.

"We will be married," he decided, "damn my father. You will make a beautiful queen."

She smiled but still, in the soul, seemed afraid.

"Oh well, I hope so," she held the tiny moulded cup in her hands tightly. "Besides, I imagine, that… well you did say your people believe a man should have several wives…"

"No, _no_," he strained stomach twisting. "I wouldn't ask you to do that. Never. That's entirely against your scruples, your heart, I couldn't. I won't. I won't negotiate that with father."

"Then what…?"

"Well one of us has to give," Atemu shrugged. "Eventually."

* * *

Anzu really had very little better to do than embroider, however dull the prospect, because frankly what else could she do? She hardly knew the city or its dangers as she spied the streets from her windows. It was dangerous anywhere for a woman to go around unattended she imagined.

Then too there was nothing pressing for her to do until Atemu's father put his foot down or waned. It was all waiting, like she was about to lay an egg, which was dreadfully uncomfortable. She was a creature of nerves though she hoped she held them well. Either way it would do no good to look worried because Atemu, worse, was a dreadful creature of nerves himself. Her panic would feed his panic would feed his anxious temper. He was rather sensitive in his own strong way.

Then again if she started down that trail of thought she'd be day dreaming away her morning.

Atemu paced, she sewed. Atemu flipped through one of the great books he'd brought with them on the papacy, she sewed. Atemu sighed, she sewed. Atemu slumped into a seat, she sewed.

Men were so impatient.

"Milord?"

Atemu buckled up, awkward and rushed, to reach the door. Anzu was coy enough from years of etiquette not to raise her head until the door was shut and Atemu turned back with the note. It crinkled, wax crackling onto the thick Assyrian rugs, as he broke the breast of it under his fingers.

Atemu tended to mumble while he read. It wasn't unattractive. Actually it gave him the appearance of focusing very hard.

"It's from the King," Atemu announced, "he's seen some sense."

"Oh?" Anzu perked into an expectant smile.

"He's invited us both to court," the prince grinned under his own restraint, "he's consented to meet you today. There are going to be festivities along the river. We're to spend the afternoon and the evening with them."

"That's marvellous," she folded down the frame and the needle, "should I change?"

"No," he hummed, sweeping over her. "That'll be perfect. Anything more and he'll accuse you of being pretentious. Can you be ready to leave in a moment?"

"Of course Milord," she promised, teasing; "you?"

"This'll do too," he nodded, tugging down his vestments. Something about his glance suggested he was trying to think what else they would need. "You best take the parasol and the fan. The heat is consuming out there. Drink often. You understand yes dear?"

"Of course," she soothed, slipping to her feet. "What should I say? What should I do? I don't know quite how to make a man like your father like me."

"You're charming," Atemu dismissed, "he'll love you. If he doesn't he's senile. I'll translate."

"Whatever you say Darling."

* * *

The wives, the children, the men, the princes…had all woken late that morning and yawning still fresh from the baths Yugi tugged the slip of the sari over her shoulder as she trudged.

Mana'jet was on the litter beside the Sultan in Yugi's place. She was too heavy to walk the entire stretch of riverside from the Palace interior to the festivities along the field. So Kisara and her husband Seth, Qazzadara's third son, walked with Yugi in the trail of princes and lords following the sultan.

Seth had a smugness about his face, a boy-child really, with Yugi on one arm and Kisara on the other. His younger brother, Qazzadara's fifth son, walked with Sesset and cat calling between themselves the men made worse gossip than the wives along the procession. Mahado too, as the eldest, was in a ceremonial litter ahead of the Sultan though Yugi was sure given the choice the crown prince would've strolled with them. It more amicable, more pleasant, to have the company of others and Yugi in particular quite enjoyed Mahado as much as she did his father.

"Did you hear anything of Atemu?" Seth asked Yugi with the woman's hand folded against the crux of his elbow.

"Why do you ask?" Yugi teased.

"Because if anyone knows anything it's you Gem Faher," he frowned. Yugi chortled but was unable to cease smiling in the face of Seth's very boyish displeasure. The third born prince had an exceptionally young face.

"I don't know this morning sadly," Yugi admitted. "I do know however that Mahado did petition the Sultan to invite Atemu to this afternoon's farewell."

"Given it's the last great celebration we'll have with his Majesty the crown prince," Kisara idled beside her husband never afraid to voice her opinion, "I can only assume his Majesty would consider it. If only for Mahado's sake."

"I hope so," Seth grunted, "it's been so long since all three of us have had cause to drink together and it may be the last time I can prove my endurance against Mahado."

"Ha," Kisara snorted. "Always such a romantic, aren't you?"

"Tis important that a man has the pleasure of out preforming his superiors," Seth defended tartly, "you shouldn't understand but to myself it's practically politics."

"And this," Yugi laughed, "is why we don't allow men to choose their own marriages. You'd pick women for their asses over their assets and throw them out in the morning."

"Oh if only they were that wise," Kisara teased, "we might let them run households instead of play fighting and farming all day like they do."

"You are both cruel," Seth scoffed, "and that is all I shall say on the matter."

"Why? Because there is two of us and one of you?" Yugi winked.

"Normally that would be quite a joyous thing for a man, wouldn't it be?" Kisara added.

"Unless those pretty things are a man's primary wife and his kin," Seth agreed, "both of whom shall eat me alive if I question their ages or their_ assets_."

"Well aren't you coy," Kisara snorted.

"He's wise enough not to get involved, you must give him that," Yugi smiled.

* * *

Anzu hadn't exactly underestimated the heat she just hadn't comprehended, couldn't in her history, that anything could be so impossibly hot, tepid, as the molten sun over the East. Atemu helped keep her upright and she knew, trying to hold the parasol and fan at the same time, that she'd look a red-faced wreck before she laid eyes on the Sultan.

"I'm sorry," she muttered pre-emptively, feeling a bead of sweat down her back.

"Never fear," how Atemu held up so cordial and jolly in this heat she'd never know.

They made the last few steps towards the grand blue and gold tents overlooking the river and just before Anzu was hit with the wave of cooled air, perfume, and giggling conversation she was painfully aware of the blister about to bleed on the back of her heel. She had supposed, briefly and vaguely, that surely given Atemu the court of the Sultan couldn't be so different from Prussia and Britton and the like. What she found as she glanced across the carpeted earth between the poles keeping the tents aloft was nothing however like Europe.

It was enchanting and horrifying all at once like a bizarre feverish kind of dream.

She wasn't exactly sure of anything, of what she was looking at, as Atemu held her close still and took weaving steps between the assembled masses on their cushions across the rugs covering the grass. There were two dozen slave boys, black as soot, waving huge fans among the collection of smoking and eating men, women and children.

A woman, as Anzu passed, licked her fingers unapologetically tossing a newborn, unbound, child off to their father who took the child with a grumble but didn't complain and didn't discipline the woman. No one else seemed to bat an eyelash. It was such a small moment, so stupid, but the gesture was so undermining to her whole childhood it sung out like a chorus drawing her focus.

She was sure, dazed, she'd stepped off at some wonderland port where nothing was recognizable.

There was a raised pallet among the scattered cushions and as they approached Anzu was so scattered by the dazzling jewellery and the foreign shapes she hardly noticed. The women seemed to be wearing nothing fastened down. Just rolls of seemingly revealing, emblazoned, fabrics that wrapped round them and exposed whole swathes of skin to the stray eye. She'd never seen anything like it.

As they approached the pallet she finally found enough focus to shut her lips and turn herself towards the glamor she found directly before them. It was as if Atemu had brought her to the altar of some ancient new-world temple.

On the pallet, sitting scattered, were two men and a woman. They could've been the three faces of the moon, or Ammit, or some other timeless, wordless, entity from paganism. The lady stuck out to Anzu's focus only because she stuck out so generally speaking.

She was as starkly white as Anzu was though dressed entirely like the rest of them with the same casual flair of laughter in her cheeks. She had a drink in one hand, tucking her hair with the other, and she was sprawled almost across the laps of the two men.

The eldest, aging and withered viciously like a burnt bone husk and much the same for colour and consistency, must've been the Sultan. He had the white shawls, the gold and the bald headed grandeur Anzu expected and the pale, almost exposed, white legs of the little lady were thrown over his crossed lap.

The second man seemed more appealing, friendlier, in his whole dark-on-dark creamy caramel face. He was more covered than most of the women sprawled about and all of the men. Even the old man had more chest showing. Still the gentleman had a kind of greatness, spangled with gold, the side of the pale woman leaning into him as if he were a jutting support.

Anzu dropped instinctively into a curtsey that Atemu was not bound by blood to follow the motion of. He stood tall beside her, chin up, and as Anzu dipped the little white and flaxen woman in the laps stopped laughing abruptly upon noticing Atemu. Was that the witch? Anzu's head spun. With her hair in her face she waited, patiently, in perfect pose for the king to order her up but he didn't.

"Is this she?" The old man grunted over the rim of his drink.

Anzu half made it out but the tone was clear enough. He didn't like her already. She swallowed.

"Yes Majesty," Atemu answered in the rather clipped tongue of his people, "this is the Lady Anzu Mazaki."

The Sultan grunted something Anzu didn't entirely understand but she gathered, vaguely, it was about her proportions. Was she too little or too big? She wasn't sure but her sweating muscles were uncomfortable holding their position.

"How much does she speak?" The king supposed.

"A little Majesty," Atemu answered. "I can translate."

"If she can't speak for herself what good is she?" He snorted.

Anzu perceived the tension in Atemu's forearm under her hand.

"Lady Anzu," Atemu glanced to her, gesturing his permission for her to rise as it became evident the King wouldn't be forthcoming in giving it. "This is his Majesty Sultan Qazzadara."

He gestured, Anzu smiled with her eyes down.

"My brother, his Majesty the Crown Prince; Mahado," Atemu swept his hand. The second, friendlier, man tilted his head amicably towards her smile. "Lady Yugi, the court's Gem Faher, assistant to his Majesty."

Something in Atemu's voice left upon starting the final introduction and Anzu's smile too almost faltered as she made contact with the rather curious eyes of the white witch she had heard so much about. Yugi smiled, cautiously, and Anzu wracked her mind trying to translate exactly what '_Gem Faher_' meant.

The Sultan's ringed hand rested on the pale knee, Mahado's arm was slung lazily round the waist as Yugi leant into him, and after a whole twenty years in Britton Anzu had never seen something so… obscene.

"It's a pleasure," Mahado greeted eventually as Atemu and the Sultan exchanged looks. "You are as beautiful as I expected milady."

"Thank you Majesty," she dropped again like a top, "it's an honour to meet Atemu's family."

Unimpressed evidently the King gestured, batting, with the back of his hand, chin raised. Atemu's hand tightened round her and evidently dismissed Anzu held her face down as the prince led her away.

* * *

The European woman, Lady Anzu, whispered to Atemu as they turned to follow the tracks upon the carpets under the tent. She looked concerned, reasonably so, and uncomfortable at the turn of events she had been unprepared for Yugi straightened in her seat or attempted to. As she moved Mahado's arm tightened subconsciously round her waist, cuddling like a nesting foal, just as his father's hand flexed with equal unawareness on Yugi's legs. Trapped in place she sighed back into her position.

What a way for a grand miss from the continent to catch her… The Sultan and the Crown Prince might've seen no trouble in it but Yugi was sure Lady Anzu would've drawn very European conclusions from her splay on the pallet. Understandably of course. Everything here in the East was so different to the whole continent what was she to think except what Yugi was certain she now did?

She rather wished she'd noticed them coming sooner, or that they'd been announced, but nothing was quite so formal here when the court was revelling.

"She didn't seem so bad," Mahado declared lazily. "Pretty wee thing, I can explain Atemu's attraction for certain."

"She looks like a coward," Qazzadara scoffed, "you see her hanging her head like that? Ashamed, weak, apologetic… Hardly the stature of a Sultana."

"Things are very different in her country," Yugi attempted absently swiping her fingers over Mahado's forearm, "she was trying to show you only the upmost respect Majesty."

"A real woman, a real lady," Qazzadara extended his index finger tutting, "can give her father honour while demonstrating her own great strength. I am not impressed."

"Oh give her time," Mahado chuckled, "let her relax. I'm sure she's masterful in her own space or else why would she enchant Atemu?"

"I doubt she does," the King huffed, "he's just too viciously stubborn to repent now."

"Easy Father," the Prince sighed, "give her time. What was the point inviting her if you shant give her a hair of a chance to woo you too?"

He wouldn't though, not unless the Sultan could see the Lady Anzu wooing the others. If she showed herself as friendly, confident enough to stride up to the great wives and take a seat with them then Qazzarada might consider her. He would never communicate as much though and Yugi feared, knew almost, that a Lady so courteous wouldn't know instinctively to do as much. To the Lady Anzu such a thing might seem rude, too bold, and perhaps rightly so but if she was to stay…

If Anzu could speak with Qazzadara she might win the old king but Yugi didn't know if Miss Anzu would have the chance. She would warn the Lady herself, she would try, but Atemu was so close to her Yugi would never have the chance. The Prince would spy it and grasping Yugi no doubt make hell for her. She could ask another but again if Atemu caught wind of it he'd call Yugi a schemer and none of the others in their cohort knew much or her language while the Lady evidently knew very little of their tongue.

Yugi would've helped, simply out of sympathy for another woman's predicament, given it was one of the few things which could inspire might heat in Yugi. However left no option by Atemu she would simply sup her drink in the loving arms of his kin and pity the Lady Anzu absently. She would've felt guilty but, alas, she didn't.

Atemu should've made better friends.

000

1 Yugi's kind of a cold, hard bitch on occasion.  
2 update next week as usual

**Next Time**: while Anzu gets a taste of the culture the Lesser Council of Great Wives get a taste of her, Yugi makes a move, Atemu makes a declaration, and as the sun sets everything unravels into chaos.


	3. Intercessions

As usual kiddoes it's another week and another update. We'll hear about what, roughly, _Gem Faher_ means this chapter (at least from one perspective) so for those of us as confused as Anzu last week never fear~

* * *

**Chapter 3: Intercessions **

The horn sounded up from the arena down the slope, which had only been constructed this morning, disrupting the horde as Atemu evidently tried to introduce his lady friend to his sisters. Sighing, the Sultan grumbled up with his stick, Mahado helping Yugi to her feet. With a fleeting exchange of kisses Yugi dismissed herself to let the old man and his eldest walk towards the day's entertainment without her interference.

She quickly found Mana'jet lumbering up with the help of the other wives and taking her hand Yugi escorted her as the gossip started to tumble. With Yugi there the circle was complete enough for the real ripping to begin so to speak. While the men had risen with their drinks and rushed ahead toward the arena for the gentler sex now was the chance to really enjoy themselves with free speech unbothered, unhindered, by the menfolk. Today was an occasion for men to laugh and the women to plot. Amongst Yugi and the wives the first order of these occasions was business.

"What do you make of the white girl?" Sesset supposed drawing up beside Yugi and Mana'jet as in the ambling crowd Kisara had yet to catch them.

"No hips," Mana sighed exhausted form the weight of the babe inside her, "and I can't for the life of me unscrew her linage. She's an Earl's third daughter or something of the sort."

"Yes I got as much," Sesset tutted, "the Sultan's first wife, the primary, should be native so as to know the land and the customs. I can't imagine how we'll organize the business of running the country with that pale one. She barely understands the tongue."

"Second wives are foreign princesses not first ones," Kisara cut in as she caught them, hooking her arm round Mana's waist as they reached a steeper portion of the slope. "It is how daughters of the East keep their rightful power within the home."

Their progress stalled a little in the crowd with the slaves trying to keep the wives shaded and the men blocking the road ahead as they found their seats.

"Her blood's not royal," Yasil voiced thoughtfully, "but what's her dowry price?"

"Narrow I suspect," Sesset grunted, "enough for an ambassador not a king. What can the earls of Britton afford Gem Faher?"

"I'm not sure," Yugi rued, "the market will have changed since I was last there. No more than ten thousand crowns certainly."

She felt cruel discussing the Lady so but she couldn't have silenced the wives if she wanted to. It was their duty, their calling, and they had every right to consider it all. Anzu perhaps thought that her marriage would be utterly down to winning men but here, in this place, the wives and the important ladies were the superior power upon all unions. They were the social and religious authority on these kinds of bargains especially the primary wife of the sultan. Sultana was quite honestly more an elected position amongst the appropriately trained locals traditionally.

Oh the Sultan picked others for himself; especially the foreign secondaries for political and regal alliances, for profits, but the first wife was a matter of supreme religious tradition. The first wife needed to be master of the house and the court, master of everything the lesser sex was supposed to master. They couldn't be a fool and they couldn't be new. The primary had to understand the intrinsic details of the system, they had to have friends, and they needed to be established.

"Less than ten thousand crowns for my brother," Mana'jet groaned, "he deserves better."

"She seems a kind lass," Yugi defended however meekly because here it hardly meant a piss in the wind if she was sweet as a doe. Women had real power here within the careful control of men. It wasn't about beauty.

"Aye, perhaps," Lurek shrugged. "It doesn't stack up well though: no blood, no kin, no dowry, no tongue, no hips for sons and no sense."

"Now that is abrupt," Yugi stressed as they ambled closer to the arena to take their seats in the constructed veranda of shade.

"Aye but look at her," Kisara gave a mother's moan gesturing covertly across the arena to where the Lady stood beside Atemu looking lost, "she must be dying of the heat in that ridiculous frock."

"She'll sweat herself high," Sesset nodded taking her seat.

"She doesn't know any better," Yugi waved her hand, helping Mana to seat herself as the slaves began to cluster with refreshments. "She's never been outside her shores I'd venture."

"Well this was a grand venture to make," Lurek admonished, "coming here without the Sultan's prior approval. She's damned her reputation by travelling alone. I admire the boldness but she doesn't it seems."

"That she has," she nodded sympathetically, "that she has, but we ought to weigh this properly. There's more to consider."

"Get the cards then," Yasil clapped good humouredly at a slave milling about, "go on! For the Gem-Faher!"

"And drinks," Kisara clicked, "drinks for this heat."

"We'll never know for sure until someone can inspect her," Yugi diverted, "there's her stars and her hips to regard in detail. We don't even know the day of her birth."

"I doubt the Sultan will let us get that far if his bitter maw is anything to judge the storm by," Mana laughed sighing, "father seems not to like the look of her."

Not at all.

* * *

Anzu could see them all across the arena; the finest of the ladies playing, laughing, _gambling?_ It startled her but then so did everything here.

With no place to sit herself amongst them, unable to strike up conversation, Atemu had defended them by keeping her at his hip which left her standing under her parasol amongst the unfanned men. Their shade was limited and the veranda they had was so cramped with rustling bodies it was hard to take a seat for long.

"What is the entertainment?" She managed to turn to Atemu, cramped between the bodies of taller men as he tried to corral her into a comfortable nook.

"Lions, contests of men, bears…" He recounted absently. "The Sultan imports and breeds animals to do battle, so do many of the nobles, and they bet upon their creatures. Tonight the men will play games of skill with each other; sports like chess and so on but today there will be gladiatorial combats."

"Like the Romans?" She perked. "Hand to hand?"

"Or with weapons," Atemu nodded, "it's savage and unarmoured."

"But _why?_"

"Because every man, including every noble prince, here should be a warrior it's believed. Rather than philosophers or men of great learning princes strive to be warlords. It's aggressive." He trailed off. "No one will be killed but they will be injured. Boys have died because they would not back down. It's considered honourable."

"That's horrible," she wheezed.

"I know," he seemed ashamed as he whispered, "bring up your fan. You shouldn't have to see the worst of it."

Entranced, almost frightened, Anzu shuffled a little closer as the very richly clad men around her began to laugh and chatter almost as if nothing was wrong. Nothing about this bothered them, not at all, and she seemed to be the only one paled at the prospect.

They had bear baiting, cock fights, in Britton and so the lions would be a grand amazement but men without their armour? Wrestling in the sand? Intending to wound each other naked to the sun? Nobles fighting aware they might perhaps kill a first born son? It seemed a little too far from the play jousting and the sword fighting of Britton with all its pomp and circumstance. It was a thin line, she would admit, but it existed to her.

* * *

Anzu could stand the sickening heat, the vicious screeching of the lions over a mud brick fence barely three feet high, the applause of the audience as a man almost lost his arm to another… but Atemu had forgotten to allude to the details of what it looked to watch real battle blood be drawn. In Britton men were injured but through armour. The whole process was cleaner and less graphic.

In Britton, on the Isle, men did not duel with lions and a short sword either. The man had been so mauled Anzu found it stupendous that the well born fellow, of good station, could even stand after willingly putting himself before a beast three times his size. It was…

Luckily as the sun set they wandered, bloodlust finally sated, back to the tents.

Anzu lingered at the table along one back edge of the main canvass tent. Her stomach was still weak from the fighting and the blood. She was sure the sloshing of sweat in her ears was the dying gasp from another great beast in the walled arena under the Sultan's inspection. Her dress, she feared, if it was not already ruined by the smell of sweat and dust would become gamey form the guts stinking up the air.

Her hands idled by her side, collecting herself, and she still… without Atemu she wasn't entirely sure what was what on the refreshments table. She hardly recognized the shapes or the smells of the food which had been macerated and spread out of familiar shapes. She'd never seen anything like it. She had nothing to orientate herself with and it was intimidating. Embarrassed she realized that without Atemu she couldn't even fetch herself a proper drink.

"Excuse me?"

Anzu lurched, brazenly uncoordinated, at the sudden British that cropped up clear as day by her side. When she turned she found to her surprise that the white witch stood composed and watching. Something about her face was so elegantly casual Anzu… the first image that came to her mind, wrongfully, was that of a proud Madam.

"Oh, hello," she breathed uselessly. "I am sorry. Am I in the way?"

"No, not at all," Yugi dismissed, "I wondered if I could be of any assistance? Are you quite alright?"

"Oh I'm fine," she coloured, ever so slightly flustered at the generosity. "Merely catching my breath."

"I understand," she sympathised, "are you coping quite alright with the heat milady? I know it can be overwhelming at first."

"A little," she laughed, "I feel almost faint but I'll be fine. I ought to find myself a drink I think, would you recommend anything?"

"The water's much cleaner than in Europe," Yugi offered reaching for a blackened pitcher as she gestured, "there's fresh milk or mead if you'd rather? The less alcohol the better I find. The heat makes you tipsy with greater haste."

Yugi poured her a cup and upon offering it Anzu found herself locked into thanking the witch. She didn't resent it, not at all, she smiled but Atemu had said so many things about this queer stranger that she hardly knew what to do. She lifted the glass, took a sip, and sighing contentedly found a morsel of cool relief that travelled down her swamped calves.

"Thank you," she sighed again, "I can't make sense of anything yet I fear."

"You need only ask milady," Yugi promised, pouring herself a cup. "The sexes here are very kind you'll find I'm sure."

"I see that," Anzu acknowledged. "Thank you."

Yugi smiled, bowed ever so slightly and tipping her glass took a sip as she turned to amble back towards the Sultan. Under Anzu's watchful glance upon her back Yugi raised her cup to the Sultan and twitching in the corners of his withered mouth the King smiled extending his hand toward her. Fascinated Anzu followed the trail of the witch as she settled, finally, to take a seat among some gloriously glittering guests upon the cushions.

"Anzu? Love?"

She pivoted lazily over her shoulder, slightly dazed by her brush with the witch, to find Atemu frowning at her.

"Hmm? Darling?" She mumbled.

"What did the she want?" Atemu fretted under his breath. "Was she rude to you?"

"No, quite the opposite," Anzu took a sip. "She fetched me a drink."

"Hmm," the prince sighed, evidently unconvinced. "You'll be careful won't you…?"

"Of course," she promised. "Have you heard anything from the Sultan?"

"He won't let me within an arm's length yet," Atemu grumbled, "but the party will move to the palace soon. When the drink's in him I can only hope he'll be a bit more reasonable."

"Hmm," she gave a solemn nod, worrisome. "Love?" She murmured, Atemu grunting towards her. "What does_ Gem Faher_ mean? She's not…it's not_ Mistress _is it?"

"No," Atemu shook his head sourly. "No, it's nonsense. She's a nobody but high ladies at court require titles. It's a matter of social tradition but no one can very well call her a countess, earless or duchess, can they? It's nonsense. It's a title my sisters and brothers fabricated for her, an imaginary position. _Gem Faher _is a character from an Eastern fairy tale. In effect it would be the same as if I called you a Red Riding Hood or said; _here is the Snow White of Britton_." He scoffed.

* * *

The procession made their way, as the sun set, back into the walled palace with a lining of guards while the slaves trailed behind cleaning, dismounting the tents, swiping the blood in the dust… Anzu finally had cause to lower her parasol but feet aching and ankles bleeding she knew her cheeks were burnt from the tingle alone. She'd be red and peeling, utterly unpresentable all week, hardly in any state to improve the impressions of her. She looked now, she was sure, like a silly girl.

Atemu held her hand in his elbow but in his own way, however straight he stood, he was clearly becoming desperate for the a chance to speak with his father. Anzu sensed their occasion and her future was slipping. She sensed defeat and trying to hold her head high didn't know quite how to aid herself from falling. Her father would be un-reconcilable when the letter recounting all this reached him and in those weeks waiting for his reply she'd be utterly without council.

She swallowed. Atemu looked gaunt, peeking his head over the shoulders of other men, trying to spot his father.

The Sultan was far ahead on the tiles, hobbling but very tall with his walking stick as the pale Gem-Faher held his arm and tried to assist his pace. It bothered Anzu still even with a vague translation of the title. With nothing but Atemu's gossip and her childhood superstitions she worried that somehow, by talking to the pale courtier or accepting her kindness, she'd let Yugi curse her somehow.

Atemu's arm shrugged out of hers.

"Follow everyone inside," he ordered patting her elbow, "I am going to try and catch them before he's off to bed. Keep your eyes out for me."

"Yes, of course," she murmured meekly.

* * *

Yugi had been assisting the Sultan, the king's weight heavy against her wirier side, making their way ahead, strolling, at the front of the party before Atemu came behind them and then beside them.

"Father," he offered, "let me walk with you. Let me help."

"I have help enough," the king dismissed, as Yugi lowered her head between them uncomfortably. Qazzadara did not at all like to be reminded of his age. Yugi would've reaffirmed it to his increasingly desperate second born but Atemu would never listen.

"Please," Atemu appealed, "let me at least walk beside you. If I am your heir, I am your son, can't I walk with you?"

Qazzadara paused, grumbled hoarsely, and regarding Yugi's averted eyes weighed the consideration plainly. The crowd behind them stalled, drawing attention, and Yugi could almost feel the sting of the eyes of the great wives and great men.

"Go stand by Mahado," Qazzadara squeezed Yugi's hand, and slipping back with the trail of her saris in one hand Yugi bowed. As she spun round out of sight she heard the king gripe to his son; "well come on then boy."

When Yugi had reached Mahado behind the Sultan the eldest prince took her hand, took her as if the whole thing were easy, were natural, and Yugi could imagine that after Qazzadara passed she could have been happy under Mahado's rule. It was a painful daydream given now she'd have to ferret out new prospects for survival.

Before them as the procession continued Atemu and Qazzadara had lowered their voices.

It took only a few meters for it to become apparent that they were bickering with increasing, shared, intensity. They had the same temper Yugi rued, turning pallid, and chuckling beside her Mahado shook his head.

"What do you think of the Lady?" Mahado murmured to her with a tender squeeze. "I did not get a chance to speak with her privately."

"She is kind, it seems," Yugi shrugged tiredly. "The wives are not impressed. She wouldn't speak with them long or animatedly. It was hard to detach her from Atemu."

"His protectiveness might damn him," Mahado sighed. "All this Western etiquette won't get him what he wants. He has to compromise but he was never good at scheming."

"I fear as much," she shuddered. "I don't know how you can be so calm."

"It's a virtue," the prince teased.

Ahead of them, as they watched, the voices of Atemu and the Sultan began to waft up a little louder while they grumbled. Things were not going well.

They had reached a dip towards the courtyard, currently on a high temple veranda leading to a flight of steps into the belly of the palace between two buildings. Yugi was aware of it if only because she worried about the old king as his body had weakened this last year during the monsoon season and the closest they came to cold days.

The intensity of Atemu's petition was evident in the passion of his profile.

The king scoffed, Yugi saw it in his shoulders, and snapping like an angry dog pushed Atemu away. The prince hissed, distraught, the king took the next quicker step himself with his stick somehow imposing still even with the slight slag in his height. He had fought lions with his bare hands in his youth.

Yugi stepped away from Mahado, who let her go, to try and reach the Sultan to resume providing a woman's assistance.

It happened then in those three seconds, that inhale, that taking his own step Qazzadara misplaced his feet.

The Sultan stumbled, which wouldn't have been of much consequence had it not tripped him too close to the top step. Yugi called out, saw a flash of it before it happened, quickening her step and with his hands crossed, paused in a moment of impossible anger, Atemu startled to glance to Yugi before realizing what the Gem Faher was running to.

Mahado was calling out behind her, Yugi missed her chance, twisting Atemu missed his chance and all three of them had to watch the King tumble down the sixteen glistening alabaster steps.

"_Majesty!_" Yugi shrieked.

Atemu and Mahado screamed next, before the clamour erupted amongst the guests. Hefting up her trails to dart down the steps Yugi bolted, almost fell herself and when she reached the bottom to clutch at the king Atemu was right behind her.

"Love?" Yugi pawed, pulling the King, moaning and hissing and spitting, onto his back and into Yugi's grasp. "Majesty? Can you stand? Where's the pain?"

"Is he alive?" Atemu hit the bottom step behind her desperately.

"Get the physicians!" Mahado was screaming upon the middle rung.

"Is he alive?" Atemu repeated arms useless at his side, fingers tense, eyes wild.

"Sweetheart," Yugi rushed out the words with the same hysteria, ignoring the prince not out of spite but simply because her whole world had condensed. "Majesty look at me, please Darling, pleas- God he's bleeding! _Mahado!_" Yugi didn't recognize the sound of her breaking voice as she shrieked. "_Mahado!_"

* * *

Yugi was… she….

She palmed her face nails digging across her scalp into her hair. Her head was ringing, everything was ringing, and… she…

Scattering she took a breath. She swallowed it, pale and stinging she watched the physicians fluster about under her gaze and schooled herself to pay attention lest they miss something. They were wiser here in general than in the West. They lacked a degree of superstition. Their gods believed in the pursuit of sciences and chemicals not as witchcraft but necessity. Mathematics and medicine were rife here more than any pestilence in Britton. Yugi very rarely had to raise her voice to these men.

They were feeling his bones, trying to isolate breaks, stopping the bleeding….

They knew they had to touch a king like they would any other man to keep him breathing. Privacy failed to exist. They stripped him and worked fast, without the pomp of some untrained priest, to strip their sovereign.

Yugi watched, they whispered.

"They need to be cleaner," she rasped eventually to one fumbling back attendant coming with the bandages, "new ones. Go, shoo, find something new."

She didn't sound like herself, stroking the unconscious warlord's hand as she scrunched herself out of the way by his resting head so the men could work.

"Milady," one drew her attention, "the thigh is still bleeding too thick. Shall we cauterize it?"

"Cauterise and set the bone, yes," she nodded dumbly. "Get him something to keep him out though, we'll force it down."

She could go on more about thinning the blood, about the king being too old for the strain and the stress of taking the molten metal while conscious but it would've been unnecessary. These men weren't fools. They knew. Yugi could rasp half a whisper of permission and the rest of the whole thing would be done with her face in her palms.

Mahado was praying Yugi was sure of it.

The court would, however, not be in a shambles. Zarzak, Abraxas, Falker, Seth and the other sons within the city or the palace would be called up to run the men's work. The princes would handle the security. The great wives were still all awake to run the rest. There'd be no panic, everything would function, the responsibility spread out, but for the night who would decide what to do with Atemu and his Western Lady? Where would they sleep? What would Qazzadara want?

Yugi inhaled, another tremor ran up her spine, and she scanned the still breathing clavicle of the king below. The Sultan was still here, his brow still firm under her hand, but this was all draining him greatly, weakening him. Qazzadara couldn't afford such a shudder. He shouldn't have broken so much either. He wouldn't have broken so much ten years ago when he was stronger, younger. He may have shaken this off then.

Yugi patted his face, felt the heat of a stressed body and hummed. He was aching, straining, from an exertion to great. The water in her belly, the tempest, churned flickering to life in the darkened bedroom.

If she…

"We've checked him over?" She whispered, running her tongue along her bottom lip.

"Aye Milady."

"Right," Yugi kissed his brow, pushing herself free of the corner. "Cauterise and be gentle about it. I'll be in the north tower engaged. Send a page in the next hour with how you go."

So many things tumbled, so many things screwed over, her mother's old recommendations, the solstice murmurs, the supplies on hand, plans, remedies, insurances, temptation, hunger…

Yugi was half in her head, half mad, with purpose when she clunked clumsily into the hallway.

She wasn't expecting Atemu there, against the wall, waiting with the guard.

He had that look about him, gaunt under the eyes, as if he might pounce and maul any man foolish enough to cross his line of sight. It registered on some level that he existed, filling the space but Yugi didn't focus upon him. Her mind erased notice of him in a second till she hadn't seen him at all. Yugi walked right past him in the other direction, didn't even hear him calling out till the Prince lunged after her and grasped her arm.

"How is it?" He demanded.

"I don't know," Yugi tugged her arm, uncaring and unfocused. She didn't have time for Atemu. She was seething, croaking. The water was rising inside drowning everything else out. "You'll know more in the morning Majesty."

He did not let go, fingers digging into the skin above her elbow where the Sultan often grasped for support.

"Was he badly hurt?" Atemu pressed. "Will he live?"

"_I don't know_." Yugi wrenched harder, still lost in a haze of stinging synapses, her insides sizzling. "Off me now," she murmured tense, "I have to go. I am one of his physicians and the blood is still flowing. I _need_ to attend to this. Let me go work."

She struggled once more, Atemu dug in and like a bear trap refused to let her loose. He took both of Yugi's arms and hefted her nearly off her feet. His hands hot, smooth, the fire inside him rippled in the tension of his jaw.

"_Answer me._" He rattled under his breath. "Is my father alright?"

"He's old, he's _hurt_. He's_ fighting_." Yugi squirmed, increasingly clipped in her own sense of impending disaster. She was losing moments while the Sultan gasped at air. The prince and his face only reminded her bitterly of the how the world might unravel if she did not drag her chosen sovereign through the dark hours before dawn. Death was hungry round them. "Now _let me go_ or he'll perish. Let me go help. You want me useless?"

Atemu shook her once, earrings clapping against her neck, growled and hushed her with the hoarseness of his own whisper.

"What should I do?" He ordered though it was such a bizarre, twisted, thing for he of all people to demand of Yugi now.

"I don't know!" Yugi croaked viciously though the effect was only to make her sound smaller. "I don't know! _I don't know! Let go!_"

She sounded petulant, she sounded wild, and turbulent Yugi barely seemed to cuff the Prince's face with her eyes. She couldn't make his image out, she was too entrenched in a thought and a plan and a hope that tumbled out of her control. Her insides were knotting with whispers. Her patience wrought, fear rising, she was too exhausted for Atemu or for this. Her feet were screaming to move and every moment of pause itched her to frenzy. The north tower was wailing silently and Qazzadara's ticking heart was...

Atemu growled, frustrated no doubt and hurting somewhere Yugi suspected from the crack in his octaves. Her arms shook loose finally, shoulders rolling out of his grip and Yugi pushed at his upper arm as she passed till with clinking feet Yugi broke into a run towards the tower despite herself. Atemu's pausing her had sent her into some sense of inflamed crisis and made the whole thing worse.

* * *

For the length and breadth of the following three days the witch scattered entirely out of sight, evaporated like the morning fog. While from the windows Atemu spied some shadow of Mahado moving between the temple shrines and the holy alcoves during the afternoons, on a constant vigil of prayer, Atemu had seen no sign of the white witch since she'd disappeared to her nest.

Court ran on, tripping forward with the usual business, and Atemu had no power yet to run it himself while Mahado was present.

There'd be no decision on his marriage now till something changed. Though… truthfully Atemu went long hours without remembering Anzu at the docks in their little crown a night room.

Kisara and Mana'jet held dinner, ordered dances, tried to keep the praying and the murmuring about the Sultan supressed. Good energy or something of the sort was what they aspired to create. Apparently the white witch thought peace and calm across the house helped aid restoration. Atemu didn't know the particulars of her theory, her mysticism, but he disliked it. They ought to be panicking.

Mahado did not come to eat but Sesset dispensed a page to take him food.

As Atemu sat amongst his brothers along the high table, beside his father's empty seat, he tried to make out some of Kisara and Mana's conversation down the table.

"She _has_ to eat," Mana rasped to a page who'd been ferrying back and forth from the outlying towers and the king's rooms where the witch had evidently been hiding. "Tell her she must come down and we'll send no more food."

"_Mana_," Kisara cawed quietly.

"I must," she grunted back. "I must see how pale she is. She'll run herself to death. Who knows what hours she's kept? The physicians lost track of her coming and going with herbs. I've seen the crown prince, I know he'll last a few more days before falling into a bed too but-"

Seth slapped Atemu's side, distracted him, and drawn away he missed the last of it.

"Anything from the clerics?" His younger brother murmured straight faced however badly it suited him to be so.

"Father's settled," Atemu sighed warily, "but though they've got him eating and laced up they tell me he's not much improved yet. They assure me they were thorough but every hour is something new, it's all slow, fresh…"

"Damn everything," Seth slumped. "So Yugi is off working for better results I suppose?"

"I wouldn't know," Atemu cocked his chin, fingers tapping. "Who knows what she'll do."

"She's kept the King alive this long," Seth muffled. "Summers ago the head clerics used to say Father wouldn't last the week out before they bought Yugi from the dock-"

"I know, I know," he raised his hand petitioning the other to cease. It drove him to sick distraction to seem them all so enamoured, so trusting, of the dirty little foundling who, for all Atemu knew, was off singing lullaby's to the devil to buy his father another year of life. The moral turf war it caused inside him was unbearable.

* * *

In seven days the King was no better. He seemed to be slipping, he moaned in bed half awake and wouldn't rise. He seemed weak. He seemed no better even as they fed him more. He wouldn't speak much. They feared the worst.

When Atemu arrived to visit the Sultan Mahado and half the council had only just left for the morning meal. They'd been whispering and, evidently still able to grunt warily, the Sultan had given them something to go with, some scrap, after their meeting with him. Whatever instructions Qazzadara still had strength to issue Atemu didn't care. He was too hot inside to think of walls, wars and politics. His father, his great noble father…

The people were strange here, they prayed to the wrong gods and seemed so much duller, so much more savage, then when he was a child but Atemu still… of course he still… he just… He swallowed.

"The Gem Faher?" He asked of a guard by the latched doors.

"The Lady is not in Majesty," came the thickly slurred answer, "she has left to return again this afternoon."

"Good," Atemu sighed.

So the witch was still riled, fretting. After turning about his Majesty's health so swiftly in those first months five seasons ago was she useless now? Had she run her mile? Run out of chants and blood to trade off? In a way Atemu hoped so. He couldn't fathom how she had kept the king here so long already but the enchantment that had fallen over the house after…

It didn't matter today in the midmorning heat. Today Qazzadaa was close, tripping the edge, and Atemu was trying to console his breath to something calmer.

* * *

1 I'm using 'British' here in the same way we'd say the 'English language'  
2 I'd like to warn you that Atemu's translation of Gem Faher _could_ be biased and incomplete.  
3 When Yugi arrived at court she originally worked as a kind of 'specialist physician' for the Sultan five years ago when his health was poor (he was seventy-five then, eighty now). Atemu has been an ambassador in Britton for three years. As we've heard his father sent him off hoping a look at other cultures would chill Atemu out.  
4 What exactly is Yugi doing up in those towers to help the Sultan? Could Atemu actually be onto something? Nah…

**Next Time**: Atemu seeks a blessing but delivers a warning, Yugi is lured into a dance with the enemy, while Mahado advises on the best ways to avoid executions, farmers and furious princes.


	4. Exhalations

Enjoy kids, I'll be interested to see what you think about this one!

Also, want music for this story?  
Track Suggestions: Best of Sailor Moon "Dead Moon", the "Prayer for Sultan Murad V" composed by Bey in 1820, Faun "Unicorne" and the "Von Den Elben" album  
Yugi Suggestions: "Witch Hunt" English version by JubyPhonics

* * *

**Chapter 4: Exhalations**

The Sultan's chambers, upon Atemu's entrance, were blooming with sunlight rather than dark and musted. Apparently the little white witch had some rumination about light and about air. All which from Atemu's understanding of British medicine was entirely counterproductive given, as any educated man knew, sickness writhed in the air and complete protection from the elements saved souls. Still it was just one of million things which an understanding of British sciences had taught him were wrong in his homeland. His father would've be in better straights with the Brits, with their doctors and their witch-less haunts.

Alas however Atemu was not still with the Brits and he may, he realized, never return to Britton.

His father, a king, looked withered and small in his grand white bed so unlike every memory of him that lived in his sons.

Atemu lost, in private with his father, the kind of tenacity he wanted at that moment. It was impossible to regain however when, weak headed, the once powerful man raised his slack frame towards his intruding offspring.

"What boy?" The gravel was still in him as he rasped.

"Majesty," Atemu made his progress closer, "I need to speak with you."

"You always need_ something_," Qazzadara chuckled slumping.

"I wanted to apologize."

"And what else?" The Sultan snorted warily.

"I…" groaning Atemu came to take a seat beside him in the creaking chair he was sure that not long ago the white witch had occupied. "Father, please, from the bottom of my heart I-"

"_Oh gods…_" He wheezed, moaning; "if you are off again on the trollop go away!"

"I love her," he pleaded with his hands splayed up in his lap. "I will find some way to be where I wish if I have to skip a boat and elope. Father, I don't care much for the throne if I have no happiness to stick me there. Can't you this once let me-?"

"No!" He hefted himself up slightly onto one elbow, hoarse and pointing. "I'll have none of this. After all your disrespect and your snapping you ask me to change a standard of everything I hold dear. You ask me, ignorant or lame of what you're asking, to make a piss of my fathers and children and grandchildren I won't do it boy."

"Father," Atemu murmured from his bedside, "I'm begging you only for your blessing before I lose you."

"She's not right." He coughed, spluttering on the angles ground up inside his throat, sagged in the deep plush of his bed. "I won't give any union which would make her Queen my blessing. She can't run our courts, she can't advise your sisters, she can't defend you or your sons, she's not fit for it!"

"Please," Atemu ground his teeth, "for the peace of the nation-"

"You can have my appreciation or your strumpet," Qazzadara harrumphed, "but don't expect it both ways boy. I don't like her. Have her as a wife, I care not anymore, but don't be so foolish as to think she should be the only one."

"If you were in love," he attempted, "honestly what would you do? What would you have me do? I promised her. I can't betray her."

"You want my advice now?" He scoffed, "after flouting the rest of it?"

"Yes," Atemu pleaded in earnest. "_Please._"

"The only way I'll ever approve of her is if you take a primary chosen at my discretion." Qazzadara cut to it swiping his hand across weakly the air to end the matter. "That's it."

"I _can't_. She believes one man should possess only one wif-"

"Then you'll have one wife and no blessings." The stubborn, languishing, mule huffed brokenly voice frayed.

"Father-" Atemu grasped though neither of them could ever seem to let the other finish.

"I'm sick of you," he spat, "out and let me die. Out!_ Out!_"

* * *

Atemu was barred from entering the Sultan's rooms hence by the towering tongueless eunuchs of the traditional royal guard. He was not however barred from the succession. Qazzadara would die and Mahado would leave and Atemu would be left still forced into the seat, negotiating his marriage with the women of the Great Lesser Council.

So when in ten days the Sultan was no better Atemu sent for Anzu to come to court. The wives would not have her at the feasts for fear of offending his father however and condemned to tiny courtier's rooms away from him she took the whole sordid thing better than he deserved.

In fourteen days the Sultan was still languishing though the physicians insisted to Atemu he shouldn't be. Apparently the white witch had tried to get him standing but Qazzadara refused. The white witch was supervising him mostly now and talking to him at great length, the Sultan having sent the rest of them way, which was the worst possible course Atemu could've imagined. It was wicked.

The witch carried the Sultan his food, the witch stayed with him till all hours, the witch was there when none of Atemu's trusted brothers or sisters were present with their father and Atemu was yet the only one barred from seeing Qazzadara. It infuriated him. It terrified him.

They had tempers both and perhaps, this time, Atemu would never make amends…

* * *

After fourteen days of hard toil the wives had cornered her. Lurek and Yasil had caught Yugi as she stepped out to allow Zarzak some private conference with his ailing father and king. They had taken her arms, held her taunt, and prodding her in all manner of ways had said she looked wretched almost in bedclothes.

Yugi bathed with them, she ate with them. Her prolonged disappearance alienated her from court and caused them worry. They reminded her as much that she should come to the bathing chamber where they could scrub her back. They said she must come eat with them, take the afternoon, and Yugi knew it was so they could assure themselves that she herself hadn't caught something dreadful or exhausted herself caring for the Sultan. They'd tie her to a bed if their consultation over the night declared her in need of rest. So she refused, politely. She couldn't possibly leave.

Yasil and Lurek informed her Mana'jet, heavily pregnant still, was increasingly distressed by her absence and reminded her how bad unnecessary stress was given her first babe. It was a low, filial, blow Yugi groaned in their grasp over and could not deny.

They promptly packed her up to dinner.

Under the tresses of the curtains, on the cushioned seats in the grand halls, Yugi's eyes ached and her voice fading rapidly from hours reading aloud she drank to loosen her gullet in hopes of preserving her throat for the next morning. Qazzadara would want more stories. He was insatiable for them now and she was feverish to deny him nothing; not kisses, not embraces, not every story she'd ever told, fabricated, or recalled from her childhood till he was sated. Arguing with him about how often his sons should be permitted to see him in his humiliatingly weakened state had gotten them nowhere. Trying to stir him had gotten them nowhere. All Yugi's skills had improved nothing. He would not rise from bed, he would not sway from his decisions and he would not let her hand go.

Gossip was Mahado was fasting, praying still in the temples, and was not attending court. Atemu and Seth and the other elder boys were forced to oversee the men by extension. Yugi felt, of course, vulnerable at the prospect and would not be convinced to do anything but nestle in a corner feeling Mana's babe kick. Kisara felt Yugi's forehead twice before the meats were sent about on the trays.

She rested her head onto Mana's shoulder and let her eyes flutter briefly. They took brief sympathy.

"-Atemu's got her at court, despite the Sultan," Kisara whispered. "Seth assures me the King still disapproves, his brothers confirm, and of course we know she is here; we run the house."

The Lady Anzu still settled for gossip but it was tenser now. Somehow, during Yugi's absence, Atemu had succeeded in making the poor, innocent, creature more disliked.

"I don't know what he expects," Mana'jet muffled mostly to Yugi as they attempted to spin her what they felt she, as one of the order, needed to know after her hermitage with the Sultan. "The Lesser Council will never approve the marriage to this girl. There'll be nothing to do with her even if the Sultan, gods forbid, dies."

"Hmm," Yugi sighed exhausted and embittered to apathy, "what a state were in…"

"What a state, what a state," Kisara repeated sombrely unimpressed. "He'll anger his brothers at this rate and we'll have a blood feud for his insults."

"It does not impress me already," Mana grunted.

"Or me, or Seth," Kisara raised her glass. "To flaunt the girl on the Sultan's deathbed…" She spat, reaching for a slither of meat with her abled hand as tutting she shook her head.

They fell into something gentler. They prodded Yugi to eat as they talked of house expenses and sticking her hand under Yugi's saris Kuli felt searching to see if Yugi's ribs were pronounced yet. She groaned, eyes sighing back, and let the woman fondle her carefully like some doting mother.

The conversational tone around them changed in the outer ring of the hall, the atmosphere sinking towards the centre where Yugi sat and instinctively she knew a grand nobleman was heading their way. The ladies clamped their tongues in the presence of men. It was tradition that they were never quite caught working.

Realizing it to be Atemu approaching, Yugi dried further into exhaustion. She wanted to return to the nest of the Sultan's white bed and whisper if only because now, the Prince's presence close by, she anticipated pain.

The prince made his greeting, the members of the gentler sex amassed smiled, and sweet nonsense ramblings began till the man seemed to notice Yugi finally. It was an illusion, a skilled courtier's trick, because Yugi was sure Atemu had been as aware of her as the prince would've been of a hot poker brushing his skin.

It didn't start well;

"Yugi," Atemu purred, coming between their parting ranks.

Yugi's eyes shot up, instantly set to the razor's edge and felt her knees lock subconsciously together. Something was wrong. Atemu did not so generously seek her out. Not with that voice reserved for little sisters. Yugi was not the kind of beast to trust this owner either and tilting her chin she wasn't immediately assured of how to respond. Mana's arm folded through her protectively, seemingly subconsciously and Yugi found the will to force a smile.

"Your Highness," Yugi greeted.

"How are you this evening?"

"As well as I can be you liege," she dismissed casually, "you look very sturdy thankfully however. I hope your Majesty is holding up well under these hard times."

"Thank you," another king's smile, "might I have a dance my friend?"

"Oh…" Yugi twittered. Mana held tighter. "Majesty, I'm sorry, I couldn't. I'm feeling the heat today, dizzy."

"Then I'll have to hold you tight," Atemu decided offering his hand over the table, "please; I insist."

Kisara and Sesset exchanged glances.

"If she falls, brother, it's on you," Mana'jet warned jokingly, though her fingers flexed round Yugi in an attempt to nestle her tight as Yugi gripped the princess viciously under the rim of the table trying not not let her smile fall.

"Never," Atemu promised, hands still out. "If you would, Milady?"

"Of course Majesty," Yugi forced a flutter, squirming out in an elegant traipse from near the window to the open hands. She almost did fall but found her feet well enough to reach the prince. How could she say no?

Atemu took the small of her back underhand and then coming round on the tiles rather delicately pulled Yugi close to settle into position. The music was quiet, no one was terribly festive. Yugi took his hand, felt his warmth and eyes darting skimmed Qazzadara's unoccupied throne. Atemu tugged her closer, snapped back her attention.

"Something wrong?" He supposed.

"Nothing Majesty," she promised.

"Don't you trust me?"

"Why on earth would you think that?" Yugi tried to be light.

"Because there's something in your eyes that says you'd rather dart to the other side of the closed sea this instant." Atemu glinted through a smirk.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to send any impression of the sort," she laughed weakly because it was true.

"My father's getting very sick," Atemu continued darkly.

"He's getting old," Yugi corrected, "unfortunately."

"Aren't your tricks working anymore?"

"There's nothing I can do."

"Can't or won't?"

"What exactly," Yugi narrowed trying to peel back an inch that Atemu wouldn't allow her to, "are you suggesting?"

"I think you can guess." Atemu rumbled.

"I'm offended you feel that way." She answered sharply. "Why would I ever hurt your father? He means a great deal to me."

"I don't put much faith the depth of your affections."

"Well then surely even you can see it would be madness at least?" Yugi grunted trying again, uselessly, to put space between them as Atemu's fingers steeled them navel to navel outside inclining ears.

"How so?"

"I have the good fortune, I admit, of being loved kindly by your brothers and sisters." Yugi shrugged, "but none of them are to be sultan and _you_… Well, if I ever gave you so much as a wet match you'd find a way to burn me alive with it."

"You think?" Atemu tilted.

"There's something in your eyes." Yugi repeated with a grimaced grin.

"There must be," the prince agreed leaning very close. "You know I saw you speaking with the Lady Anzu by the river?"

"I expected," Yugi held her chin, "I didn't make any secret of it."

"Then I don't suppose it's any great surprise if I tell you that if you come within ten feet of her again I'll kill you?" He had the audacity to smile gently, Yugi's hand in his, Yugi's body close to his stronger chest as if she was delicate.

"Majesty I'd rather not be within teen feet of your shadow on any given day of the calendar." She smiled back. "Now, if you're done, I'd like to sit down."

"I don't know what you've done to charm any of them, I don't know what you're doing to my father in that sick chamber," Atemu clarified, "but I'm not so vulnerable to parlour tricks from Satan's brothel."

"Then you'll make a fine Christian." Yugi snorted, trim features hardened to a pressed line of the lips. She'd heard that kind of vile nonsense in her youth a thousand times over from older, stockier, men with just as little sense if less paranoia.

"Have a lovely evening squatting in my home," Atemu dismissed, dipping his head as if courteous to an outside observer. He raised Yugi's hand, still in his grasp, and almost kissed the back of the palm before Yugi untangled it abruptly.

* * *

Yugi thought that, when she slunk back to the Sultan's rooms, she was relatively unaffected by Atemu's wildness but…

In the morning Yugi slipped her feet onto the tiles of his chambers and swaddled herself up in two thick coats just as the dawn started to split across the darkness of the sandy earth over the walls.

There was not a soul yet awake, the kitchen fire had yet to be lit, and not for another hour or so would the wives be bathing together in the baths. It would not be till after then, washed and fed amongst the scented water, that Yugi's attendants would show themselves to help her dress. For now it made no difference to her.

She skirted the quiet passages of the palace, under the beautifully blue arched verandas opening onto the garden courtyards with their manicured stones where the sun hazed into focus slowly. Her slippers held her feet so well they sweated lightly and the cold air of the night would fade in a while as the stagnant heat of the day set in.

Yugi slid through another set of veils, pass more screens, weaving down another passage. They didn't like doors here in the East. The openness of great rooms allowed music and air to flow unobstructed. Little rooms were hot, dense, cramped, easy to heat but hard to cool while large spaces could be altered so many ways with the paper walls Yugi passed now.

When she dropped down the flight of steps towards the courtyard nearest the river she knew intrinsically somehow that Mahado would be awake. She knew too that Mahado would be here. It was a sense more than a hope. Still when she saw the prince, hardly dressed and mostly bare chested, it was a relief so great she sighed half swooning across the grass.

"Majesty," she whispered, clutching the jackets tighter against some imaginary cold.

"Yugi," the man jolted, chuckling quietly to extend both his hands in welcome. "You are up before the gods and in such a state too. What have I done to deserve this?"

Yugi slid her hands into the larger set of the grown man's. They were almost as black as Qazzadara's but held all the virile strength the sultan had lost these past few years. Mahado had been such a talented young prince on his horse Yugi remembered her lips pressed as she squeezed the larger fingers cradling her like swallows.

"What's wrong my friend?" The prince tilted closer, innately a creature of sympathy and kindness.

"Oh Majesty…" Yugi groaned gently, eyes wafting shut on impulse. She had wanted this moment alone to speak so desperately and yet now here before the sweet man she could barely focus her tired body. "Oh Majesty…"

"How now," he hushed, taking both of Yugi's hands into one of his as the other swept round her shoulders. "What's wrong here sweet friend? You look so sad this morning. What have I done? What can I do?"

"Nothing, nothing," Yugi moaned eyes squeezing shut as she slumped her brow into the man's exposed clavicle. "Mahado I… Oh, gods, I'm weak. I'm afraid."

"Of what?" The prince laughed gently. "What devil? My father would burn a temple down for you little one and I am sure my brothers would help. If you could make your case well enough even I would gladly raise a torch."

"Of tomorrow," Yugi hissed, "you don't understand that… Gods Mahado please don't leave here. I'm so afraid of what will happen if you do."

"I am not leaving tomorrow sweet," he promised, "not for a while yet. There are many more tomorrows. What makes you so scared? Have you seen something for me to come?"

"No," Yugi shook her head bitterly, resting her cheek on the man's chest. "I can't see anything and it terrifies me."

The prince squeezed her closer and childishly Yugi slung her arms up the man's back to feel his shoulder blades. Mahado was a good man, a good prince, a good friend.

"Yugi," he chuckled gently, tipping her chin up. "None of this, all's well."

"He'll die soon," Yugi whispered tightly, "he will, I know it. I can see his eyes fading these days. Then you'll leave and- oh gods, please don't leave us. If you leave I… Please, everything will change, and you'll be such a good king and-" Her voice was caught up, breaking, as she choked on herself.

"Shh," the man dismissed very delicately, "everyone must die, even my father. He has had a good, happy, life and I have no doubt the gods will be envious to have him. You need not worry about that."

"But the throne-"

"All will be well."

"Don't go," Yugi begged twisting her chin to slump her face forward in the man's chest, "_please_. I can't bear to ask this of you, I'm sorry, but _please_ don't leave us. You should be king. You'll be such a wonderful king…"

"Hush," he soothed, dark hands petting Yugi much the same way his father did. For such a gentle soul Mahado was much like his father in the oddest most reversed ways. "I can't stay friend. I can't. I was not made for state-"

"You're wise," Yugi murmured hotly. "Everyone adores you-"

"I am a much better man away from the world," Mahado hushed over her. "Here, at court, I become something I don't like. I'll do more good out there."

"But…" She squeezed, she so…

She couldn't bring himself to raise her head but she knew, she'd known before arriving, that the battle was lost. She wouldn't dare truly drag a good man from something he loved and Yugi had known for months that this had all been set and decided. Mahado didn't change, not his mind or his soul.

"Atemu's a smart man," Mahado intoned generously, "my brother is sweet in his own way, romantic, and he is not so savage or so vicious that he would let that overwhelm his sense. He's worldly. He has much more restraint to recommend him than myself."

"He hates me," Yugi whispered, hissing up to the soft face as the first of silent hot tracks burnt their way wetly down her cheeks. "He_ hates_ me Mahado. I couldn't bear it. I'll never survive."

"No, hush," the prince straightened firm but understanding, "my brother is no savage. He would not kill you little one. Our father cares for you so and if Atemu respects his memory he would never dare. Besides that you have so many friends. My brothers, my sisters, my kinsfolk all love you dearly. Life here cannot go on without you or Mana'jet or any of us who are close to each other now."

"I know," Yugi sniffed lips wavering in a warble as the tears burnt the corners of her lips, "but he'll…I _love_ this place. It's part of me. He'll ruin me, he'll ruin it. I'll come to hate it here, he'll make sure I'm miserable and I couldn't _stand it." _ She turned her face into her hand, beside herself. "He'll drive me out. He'll make this beautiful home of mine no longer mine and he'll… Oh gods he'll- I can't even-" she cut himself off in a hiccup.

"_Shh,_" Mahado laid her head back down, _"shh_ little one."

"I'm sorry," Yugi moaned into his chest, sighing still. "I'm sorry to be so selfish with you."

"Nay, shh," he patted back her hair. "You are Gem Faher. This is your home. The gods, you must trust, are wise and you are wily and all will be well."

Leaning a little Mahado cupped her cheeks to raise his face for inspection as Yugi sniffed.

"You must trust your friends," he assured softly, "my family loves you. Trust them. Everything will find its way."

"I have nowhere else to go," Yugi whispered, "and I love you all so…"

"Then don't leave us," Mahado smiled, thumbs rubbing to swipe at her fresh tears. "You belong here. Not even the gods can rip a man from his homeland. They'd have to rip all the blood from you little foundling."

"I…" she gave up, sighing into the rest of Mahado's palm.

"Just hold on with all your might," the prince murmured, "and Atemu will get sick of trying to shake you off. Should the worst happen; he's got no patience. You'll out endure him."

"I don't want to hurt the the family with a feud…"

"You won't." The man promised. "He'll hurt more, disturb more ground, trying to dig you out of your hole. Trust me."

She nodded, sloppily, and sniffed like a ridiculous child but, gods, when the light started to come up over the walls and break across the tiles in a splay…She loved this place too much. It was all too magnificent. The idea of leaving hurt so desperately Yugi couldn't fathom it. After a childhood roaming and wandering lustfully across the continents of Europe she couldn't imagine taking a step outside these walls now. She'd be devastated. Just the light arching through the ferns made her tighten up into new tears.

She'd fight Atemu tooth and nail to stay.

* * *

"-_and so they lived happily till the end of their days._"

It was the last thing Yugi would ever say to him, squeezing the curled hand as they exchanged glances and smiles.

The book was laid down. Yugi's head slumped forward eventually in the afternoon warmth through the great crosshatched glass windows. Her cheek rested on the sheets, her hand on the old king's.

She wasn't sure how long she slept but the sun was still a little before setting when she woke, befuddled, to brush her face and stroke Qazzadara's knuckles.

He was already cold.

* * *

1 He wasn't around long but I very much like Qazza and I hope at least you a tad sorry for the old king.  
2 Things intensify slightly from here out~

**Next Time**: Anzu sees two great spectacles of the East, Atemu enters into formal discussions concerning his marriage with the Great Lesser Council, the princes are riled, Yugi holds tight and makes Mahado an offer…


	5. Aspirations

Hey guys, see down the bottom for possible changes in update schedule but chances are everything is as normal this week and next. Also… how many of you think I'm a guy? Cause my count has reached three which makes a coincidence a pattern~

* * *

**Chapter 5: Aspirations**

It was perhaps the most exposed and elaborate thing Anzu had ever seen though she spied it only from windows unwelcome. In Briton the heir apparent was not allowed to attend the funerals of anyone: not his children, not his mother, not his wife…because it would invite all those present to consider the death of the heir and the king which was, de-facto, treason. In the East however it seemed that the typical restraint of self was not at all the aim or intention.

The very proud, very bold, men and women Anzu had spied all these days led the procession, held aloft the coffin, sung the prayers and sobbed viciously. The heavily pregnant, beautiful, woman Atemu had introduced as his sister beat her fists on the ground in grief and with their heads down no man seemed to think her less a princess.

The black saris on the sand were multilayered; shimmers of blue, vermillion, deepest burgundy pressed with gold ornaments and plain ebony linen till they crowd seemed a splayed, glistening, peacock feather. It was intense and misleadingly simple upon the top layer but the core was colour.

Gem Faher Yugi, the white witch, was one of those holding the body up and sobbing as she walked with her face in one hiccupping hand seemingly barely able to stand. Anzu could see how men punctuated the tight throng of the lesser, gentler, sex and how beside Yugi the Prince Mahado had her waist and was bitter faced.

Anzu could only hear them all singing the pyre hymns, hear them crying, and watch Atemu flitter out of view among the armoured princes carrying their swords and lances along the rim of the throng. She supposed it was some pseudo-ceremonial tradition but with an underlying practical purpose. It made sense to her in a way to have the men armed to see their father to the grave, intimidating interfering spirits, and likewise it kept the hysterical gentler sex defended along the road.

Atemu had told her, gaunt and grey faced, that they would not be back for all of the night and most of the next day. The court, he said, would walk to the tomb of the Sultan, bury him, and revel the night away in hysterics before traipsing home in the morning. He said there would be songs and hymns the whole way there and back to cover their tracks from tomb-robbers or demons.

She understood she was not welcome, she could see good reason for the resentment towards her and she…

Atemu looked so horribly bitter faced, hardened, walking under the window almost out of view. She wanted to be crying beside him.

* * *

Mahado sat beside Atemu, to his silent relief, four days later. The Greater Council of men had left, destined for coronation preparations, with a signed abdication under their arms and a holy manuscript both princes had sworn against (despite Atemu's unmentioned conversion to Christianity). Behind them now came the Great Lesser Council.

They were the women most import in Atemu's court. The same who had kissed his father's coffin and said the last, secret, chants. Only the sex who could birth life could see it in or out safely to or from the gods it was believed here. To them, as always, fell the final issue.

Mana'jet struggled to take her seat, Kisara and Yugi assisted. The very sight of the white witch beside his sister, holding her arm, could've sent Atemu into a proxygasam from the tiny gesture of Yugi squeezing her fingers alone. The fact the great lesser council saw her still, after the burial of Qazzadara, as Gem Faher and as special somehow despite the fact the only man giving Yugi any legitimized authority was gone… Atemu clenched his teeth.

Atemu's younger sisters, wives of the important dukes and sub-warlords, his in-laws, a priestess or two and the Gem Faher took their seats before him more comfortably than any of their husbands had. To them Atemu was an apprentice in his expertise of romance, house-politics and the sort. Tradition said they were here to advise him as specialists.

In Britton things never would've been so. Atemu's upbringing clashed with his conversion in such a way that two senses of what was right, natural, in the world sizzled into each other. Anzu still couldn't fathom his explanation that the wives of the court were to order him about. She had never dared to raise her voice to any man after all.

"Kinsfolk," Mahado gestured as Atemu swallowed uncomfortably, "we are gathered as you know to discuss the matter of my brother's great marriage."

"What find you, dear ones, on the issue?" Atemu managed stiffly, not quite straight in his seat.

"We've weighed the candidates your Majesties but we are unresolved." Mana'jet shrugged unapologetically.

"You have no choice? No solution?" He cocked up one brow and greatly doubted as much. The wives of the East _always_ had their minds made up. They would've decided days ago.

"Well we have our solution," Kisara illustrated a sweep of her hand, "but your Majesty's preference complicates the issue. You wish for us to consider, seriously, the Lady Anzu yes?"

"Most grievously and promptly."

"We cannot _properly_," Kuli elaborated both laced hands resting on the table like a lawyer, "until we can inspect her _properly_. There is her fortune, her spiritual nature, and her physical condition all unapprised."

"That aside my Liege we like not her odds otherwise," old Lurek piped up casually leant back in her seat.

Mahado glanced, unhelpfully, to his younger brother as, across the rounded table, Yugi seemed to stare blankly at nothing with her hands folded. Atemu straightened.

"I can ready conditions for you to speak with her," he offered, "but I cannot guarantee she will consent to a physical inspection."

"Then we can't have her," Mana'jet spoke most readily, unafraid of even Atemu's temper. "Those are our laws. If she won't submit to them how can she preside over them? How are we to be sure she's a maiden?"

"She is," Atemu raised his fingers though his palm sat still on the rest of the seat, "I have her father's written assurance."

"That was months ago," Kisara threw up her hand, "and while I love your Majesty dearly you are young and journeys across the narrow sea are cold and lonely."

The others nodded, tutted, with the knowledge of marriage and experience of men. They were evidently unconvinced and unimpressed. Atemu's fingers tightened but he… he could not see himself raising his voice obscenely before his little sisters…

"We would consider her as a secondary wife readily, without issue," Sesset leant forward appealingly her elbows on the polished surface, "but not as a primary your Majesty. Surely you can see that much."

"I will not consent to a secondary wife at this point," Atemu spread his hands swiping demonstratively before him, "and before I could have a secondary you would have to offer me a primary regardless."

"We have candidates," Mana'jet tutted her fingers, "we just wish to settle this European issue being it seems closest to your heart."

"Show me a bride better suited, more available, than a properly educated British lady and I would be surprised." Atemu snorted.

"You mean to suggest your sisters and your cousins couldn't out reach any second removed daughter of a _whose-their-name?_" Mana'jet prickled sharply. "Brother I'm almost insulted. I only remain not so because I assume you mean better than you explain."

"I only meant," Atemu clarified, raising both hands to placate as the wives visibly rankled up towards him, "that the Lady Anzu is just as intelligent and well-bred as the ladies of our own proud sovereignty."

"I would argue the the details but that would be inevitably pointless," Kisara twisted with half a moan. "The point is we like her not Atemu."

"But I am your king and I like her, I have proofed her, I will testament to her." He grunted impatiently frustrated.

"You are not our king yet," Lurek checked him, "and we don't like her as a queen. You are no expert in this Majesty. This is _our_ business. She will lead _us_, if Sultana, not you. We have to endure her authority, her ignorance, and we will all of us, children and husbands included, bear the cost."

Yugi was wringing her wrists and one knee crossed daintily over the other. Atemu found himself rubbed, itched, increasingly just as much by the fact the Gem Faher hadn't seized a dangling chance to mock him. The silence was as burdensome as the white witch's voice because the silence veiled whatever vengeance might be coming.

"My kinsfolk," Mahado sighed up finally, "what would you suggest? Excluding every issue of proving the Lady is of fine stock, what is your most reasonable proposal?"

They glanced, they hummed, and Kisara nodded wisely to Mana'jet who patted her belly as preparing for battle. Yugi glanced but seemed subtly uncertain.

"We would happily accept the Lady as his Majesty's second wife, sole bearer of his sons," Sesset nodded, "and we would recommend the Gem Faher for the primary and the politics. It solves our residual issues."

_"What?_" Atemu hissed up, wrenching forth in the seat like a kicked snake.

Yugi stiffened abruptly, head cocking to either side amazedly as hers own fingers curled, and in the briefest second wherein their eyes met Atemu perceived from the horror in the witch that she was not privy to this scheme nor partial to it. They were as riled as each other, as offended, aghast, as each other. That made it all worse actually.

"Yugi knows the business of the court, of running the house, of managing expenses; of queenship," Kisara shrugged mildly. "She is amicable with us. She has close alliances with the family and important figures. She has defendable honour and standing."

"She has less blood than the Lady Anzu does!" Atemu snapped. "She comes from no-name peasants!"

"The Sultan took her in as clan," Mana'jet seemed nonplussed by the issue, "and she needs be married. None in the high court would question it."

"Ha," Atemu managed a tense sound through his nose, bamboozled. "Well where the Lady Anzu may have a lesser dowry she has _none_."

"She knows our customs, our language," Lurek interjected. "The Lady doesn't."

"Besides I'd wager she has amassed a great personal fortune over the last five seasons, one your Majesty could assume co-regency of," Kisara nodded. "Regardless of those specifics the Sultan left conditions in the ledgers for a considerable yearly pension to the Gem Faher upon his death. It matches that of what he would afford one of your sisters. It's a good price. It would save the crown very good money to make her one of the household."

It was all viciously practical and yet instantly close knit. Atemu saw on their wily and contented faces that to have Yugi as their ring leader would give the council of the great lesser exactly what they wanted. For them things would be unchanged from one Sultan to the next, a smooth transition, a quick progress and while that was all good for the nation…

"And what can you say of her honour? Her _physicality and spirituality?_" Atemu quoted, utterly offended and quickly becoming venomous.

The Gem Faher, who had turned deathly pallid, darkened four shades and moaning behind her sewn lips buried her face in her face palms exasperatedly.

"She will consent to our inspection and that of a physician," Lurek grunted solidly convinced. "Besides that she is nothing if not a spiritual authority among us, as a good queen should be, so I could say nothing ill of her fortune."

"I doubt your Lady could lead a mass in the temple," Mana'jet nodded, patting her belly.

"This is absolutely _ridiculous,_" Atemu spat, "I won't have it, it's utterly incomprehensible; out of the question!"

"What of your Majesty?" Kisara turned, sighing, to Mahado.

Atemu rounded on him and stiffening slightly the elder heaved cautiously.

"I can see your illustration," he consented, "the Gem Faher is a suited candidate. Still it seems inconsolable to my brother's constitution."

"Oh think of it this way," Atemu's fifth sister Briga piped impatiently from the fringe, "Yugi is here. That marriage could be swift. You could hurry onto the second one within the month. It makes no difference so long as one of them has princes or some third bride!"

"It makes every difference!" Atemu boomed standing.

If he had been a king in Britton they would've cowered. The lesser sex would've quivered back from him and at the abrupt rise of their soon-to-be king would've risen themselves on matter of sacred etiquette. Here however his aunts, his siblings, his cousin, his in-laws only looked impatient and embarrassed by him. They had no fear of men. They knew their business. They would not be bullied.

"I won't consent to that," Atemu dismissed trying to regain some face as sighing he swiped his hand again. "We will need to find another solution."

"_Ah milord_," Mana'jet groaned into her fingers as they messaged her temple, "be reasonable. We will meet you halfway! Compromise with us!"

"My friends," Mahado raised his voice smoothly with his calming hands, "for today let us leave this. Let us meet again in a week or so. If you, dear ones, would review your options we would greatly appreciate it. Atemu and I shall review ours."

"Majesties," Mana'jet sighed, waving her hand in consent as the party rose to the dismissal of the abdicated prince like perfect dolls. They were utterly reasonable creatures for Mahado.

* * *

Yugi took some rustling, a tap from Kuli, to even know to rise and then she was the first one out on brisk leather bound feet.

"Oh halt!" Kisara cawed striding after her to grab her arm. "Halt, halt, friend."

"You gave me no warning on that!" Yugi twisted as the doors shut behind them and the light bellowed through the windows and Atemu could be heard raging beyond the wood.

"Aye," Kisara nodded, "we knew you'd not go for it. Tis a good prospect though, a solution, and like him you ought to be more reasonable to it."

"Aye, she be right," Mana agreed waddling to reach them.

"It's madness!" Yugi grunted. "Rife madness! He'd rather gut me so much as look at me! It's a miserable prospect. You _know_ he hates me."

"He's a fool, he's a boy," Lurek moaned eyes rolling. "You are a fine option. Someone ought make that apparent to him. He'll see it if he's forced to settle with it eventually."

There was a general clamour of sagely nods and clucks throughout the Great Lesser Council.

"You've all lost your minds," Yugi wheezed, astounded as she shook her head into her hand.

"What's he to do?" Sesset grunted. "He'll nary marry that Lady without our consent. It would make him a laughing stock to everyone. It would be to disrespect every man at court by disrespecting the word of their mothers, their wives, their sisters and daughters."

"I know not what he'll do," Yugi retorted with a curt gesture still softly hot, "but I want not to know. Marry me somewhere else, anywhere else, I shudder at the thought of having him."

"Marriage tis a curse, to bear sons is a curse," Mana'jet recited with her eldest brother's calm. "We do it not for pleasure. He's stubborn as devils after his ambassadorship; tis the duty of us to straighten him out and tis your duty as well."

"No one marries for pleasure save fools," Lurek scoffed hands on hips, "he needs quality or else we'll all go down with him. I'd marry him but I already have a hopeless man of my own. It's your turn to care for one now the poor Sultan, rest him, is gone. You're the only one hard enough to endure without shuddering at his tantrums."

"Well clever or essential as it may be my loves," Yugi laughed breathlessly, "he shall never permit it. You'd have to drag him there."

"We might, or I might," Kisara snapped, "if he keeps sprouting off like a petulant sand-sucker."

* * *

Atemu, without consulting anyone, formally invited the Lady Anzu to court and to dinner that evening. He propped her next to him on the high table and as nervous as she rightfully looked he kept his chin high.

Kisara, Mana and the others were livid under their breaths. They would not speak to her. They pretended, very coyly, to not understand her attempts at either British or their own tongue when she bravely once wandered to them. Yugi presumed somehow by the incline of her spine that she had meant to apologise. She would get no chances however. The great wives were inconsolably offended by Atemu yet again. Another wall had been built when under any other circumstance, any other day, and they would've welcomed her openly.

The men sniffed it out, saw it in eyes, and next to Atemu on his opposing side, over Mahado, Seth pointedly refused to make eye contact with or speak to his elder brother for the duration of the evening. All of Atemu's brother's in fact refused to speak with him save Mahado who tried valiantly to move amicably between all groups softening things. It may not have been so bad if the Lady weren't a form of disrespect to Qazzadara's memory as well as the wives. So while the lesser men of court were forced by rank to acknowledge the prince but they did so with such a shuffling air of discomfort that it was tangible to the most uneducated observer.

Their wives had been offended and hence the men of court were offended.

Atemu pretended to be ignorant by how little he demonstrated to care about the fiasco. Cut out from speaking with his brothers, or his sisters, he passed the night with Mahado and Anzu flouting them all out of spite.

Yugi could've twisted all her hair out bemoaning it. The great stubborn fool would have himself ruined before long. Unable it seemed to stop shaking her head with every heavy exhalation Yugi was forced to attempt to entertain herself with the children and questioning younger courtiers who sought her out. She made a game of reading their fortunes, consulted with one young maid on her new marriage and bounced a babe of Sesset's in her lap.

* * *

The men rushed the coronation with Mahado's backing. The wives, now rankled, refused to change their stance on the main issue of contention being that Atemu ought to have more than one wife. Atemu hurried after one council and languished unable to reason with the other.

In an effort to organize the transition before Mahado left to the sanctuary of Juras, his trip being once already waylaid, the coronation was staged for within the month.

There was no way either to deny the subtle aggression of Atemu towards the Gem Faher.

The Lady Anzu, on the morning of the grand event, was still morally aghast at communal baths and not invited to them regardless. For Yugi however the morning was a hectic shared mumble between thirty others.

Kisara sat bare chested on the rim of one enormous tub, before the sun had risen, dragging an ivory brush in hard yanking motions through the hair of others. Mana soaked her feet in the hottest pool trying to ready her uncomfortable body for a day of work.

They didn't believe in lying-ins for those heavy with child here. To an extent perhaps; the week before the due date perhaps, a date they calculated with effortless precision, the pregnant individual might sit aside at home. For weeks before duties would lessen too but unlike the Europeans of the continent they did not believe in the East of putting their foal bearers to one side. Yes afterbirth was polluting and dangerous to all, including the contaminated mother, but exercise and use of the mind was productive in growing a healthy child and they never could completely withdraw from social life. The few days they would be without Mana when her babe dropped would be exhausting enough without months of ritualistic containment.

Lurek scrubbed Yugi's back thoroughly, not as gently as was their regular route either, and insisted upon checking under her nails.

Hair was pinned still wet, able bodied slaves rushed round with beads and feathers for the arrangement of ornaments into soft locks. On the edges of the tubs every woman was slapped and rubbed down by their companions with sweet smelling fumes and things to lessen the sour bite of the sun.

Kohl came after the donning of ceremonial garbs. Sorting whose fabric was whose from family crests, colours, and a million tiny straps and stripes of identification which clarified status took much less time than it should've. The symbols were familiar however and the great wives very skilled. They were rushed, viciously businesslike about the endeavour and insistent that they would be punctual.

Yugi licked her fingers, held the tip of the tiny brush tight and lined Kuli's eyes as well as Yasil's before Kisara grabbed her chin and turned her about for her turn.

How was the Lady faring she wondered? Gazing up toward the ceiling at Kisara's order she could picture Anzu in her room with a few sloppy caramel maids trying to ready herself for what was expected. She could never be ready properly without assistance. Yugi had struggled alone to try and present herself to court in her first days within the palace. It was isolating, confusing, and shaming to do as much. She pitied her, she ached for her, she- Kisara ordered Yugi closed her eyes.

Would Anzu be wearing the dress of a European princess or an Eastern queen?

* * *

They went through the city to the grand temple in open topped carriages lined with footmen and guards down the processional way where the peasants clamoured up on the bases of statues to spy a look.

Yugi spotted children on the anthropomorphic marbled head of the sun god waving and cooing towards the colours. She snorted, rather amicable with the sight, and between the feet of the seated one of Kuli's elder daughters, about five, waved back proudly.

They were directed inside the temple with all the pomp imaginable and in the two front pews, nearest the centre aisle, sat Mahado and the Lady Anzu. She had made it at least, Yugi lessened the knit of her shoulders relieved, but she was wearing the dress of a continental princess and not that of a native. For that, among other nit-picks, the other guests along her row turned their chins away to one cocked side, fanning themselves.

Yugi was, as she expected, along the same row as the Lady however on the extreme opposing end against the temple wall. Atemu would've organised that as some new, quiet, demonstration of protest and dislike for Yugi's continued existence.

The only amicable thing Atemu managed to do upon arriving was wear the traditional garb of his nation rather than something foreign. Given Yugi, and not naming several others, suspected the prince of conversion to the bizarre one-god nonsense of the Britons it was probably Atemu's wisest decision. If the masses perceived their Sultan as a heathen…Still it failed to make the day any less tenuous however with the Lady Anzu put in a place of honour and sticking out brazenly though she kept her head down and her smiles soft.

Yugi didn't dislike her, she knew that in her heart, and she had a depth of sentiment for her truthfully. The Lady was trapped in an uneasy and uncomfortable position unable to make her own moves. She was compelled to follow Atemu's instruction and unfortunately the prince had not been wise about anything yet.

* * *

Atemu seemed to expect, or hope at any rate, that after the coronation the feast which spanned the whole of the city would prove more fortuitous for his aims.

It didn't.

There was revelry Yugi observed and participated in but the freshly crowned Sultan could still not yet convince any of his siblings to acknowledge the Lady Anzu for longer than a few insufferably tense words. She circulated the room with him, trying her best at their tongue, and left a shadow of grumbles and amusement. Yugi took a heavier gulp of the sweet mead and resolved to stay firmly aside from it. For once she was quite lucky the prince considered her existence so outrageously insulting.

Atemu was Sultan now.

Yugi took another, heavier, gulp till she'd tilted the whole goblet back. Gods protect and preserve her.

She twisted a fastened bracelet, fingers swiping over a set of heavy pendants clinking round her clavicle. Many of her favourite conversationalists were dancing and among the rest the night had gone on so long that they were a little too heavy headed to talk politics or religion.

Seth had turned her through two dances, Mahado likewise, as had two of Atemu's other brothers, Zarzak and Abraxas, and if Yugi had wanted to she would've had no shortage of such options. She decided however to linger along the far wall feeling the cold stone against the bare back of her neck.

Yugi lifted one delicate construction off her clavicle. She had more than a dozen pieces of personal jewellery in her quarters that she'd amassed over the last five years. She thumbed this one with particular fondness however. Beautiful thing it was too with the precise gold flowers and the tiny dark pearls.

"And where pray-tell did you find that?"

Yugi startled but turned her head as she made the mutual, instinctive, motion to seal her fingers round the pendant. It saved it from Atemu's almost snatching fingers.

"Excuse me Majesty?" She cocked her head coyly. Her fingers were almost white knuckled as Atemu turned his hand from reaching for the piece to open up his palm flat asking for it.

"That lovely necklace," Atemu specified, "where ever did you get it?"

"A gift Majesty." Yugi refused to uncoil her grasp round the item as Atemu's hand lay still waiting for her to forfeit it for inspection.

"From my father?" He supposed tensely. Apparently the night's shunning of his new sweetheart had embittered that standard temper of his.

"From your brother," the Gem Faher corrected.

"That belonged to our mother I believe," Atemu informed very curt about it all. He wanted it. Yugi would not relinquish it. "Which brother gave that to you?"

"Mahado," Yugi retorted with her chin high, "your Majesty can ask him. I know not where he got it but he assured me it was his to give."

"It looks much like his inheritance," the Sultan frowned, "yet I doubt he would give something precious to outside the family. Surely you understand mother's things should pass to their children?"

"You'll have to ask him Majesty," Yugi insisted unwaveringly. "If he's made some mistake he's wronged us both."

She refused to let it go for fear of never seeing it again. It was precious to her and as precious as it might've been to Atemu she would not return something the man wanted only now out of spite. If he had asked for sentiment she would've consented but for the sake of bitterness she would not bend.

"When did he give that to you?" Atemu demanded his hand finally slumping to his side though Yugi's did not leave about her neck.

"During my first new year here Majesty," She answered, they called it Christmastide in the continent or the Solstice of the Last Day in the East.

Atemu seemed to consider asking for it directly, Yugi's eyes skimmed him waiting for it, and if the Sultan did ask plainly Yugi may have had to surrender it. She wouldn't if she could avoid it though and for now Atemu seemed to think better of it.

He grunted, flicked his wrist and was gone without a proper greeting or farewell.

Shuddering Yugi eased her grasp round the docile little thing to regard it with her hair in her face. It seemed Atemu's policy for averting personal misery was to inflict some upon Yugi…

Her fingers flexed in over the pendant viciously tight. Her eyes trailed up to the unoccupied throne Mahado sat smiling next to.

Yugi… she inhaled. In the morning Mahado would leave.

In the morning…

* * *

Mahado would leave today, to the sanctuary, to become a great man of ghosts and mysteries and Yugi would be left under the protection of the wives and greater lesser. Unmarried and kinless without the Sultan her chances of weathering Atemu were declining rapidly. She didn't like the turn of the waves at all.

Yugi's kinsfolk, her blood family, back upon the continent had called her mad for coming to this place but before that they had endeavoured her whole life to teach her the exact details of survival. Gypsies were favoured folk, they carried superstitions, and there was to every spat, nasty, myth a granule of truth. The truth of Yugi's heritage was that amongst mysticism and practicalities her kin had taught her how to watch the turn of a conversation and the vibrations of an atmosphere. After centuries of determining when best to leave a village before they were burnt or lynched the gypsy in Yugi knew her fortune was turning sharply. She needed to hide from the storm

She found Mahado, in the stables, as the prince readied up his horse.

Yugi had come through the back, head down, as a crowd gathered toward the gate and knowing time was short snuck closer. She should've dragged herself from the baths sooner but had been unable to with Mana'jet taking her hand so tightly and insisting she put her hair right for the farewell. Finally free after the encounter Man was walking in the sun on the upper veranda and Yugi had her last chance.

"Majesty," she whispered coming round into the stall.

Mahado turned, smiled, and glancing seemed to scan for onlookers outside the stable in the yard. With most of them busy with themselves he seemed to decide no one would notice as he dipped carefully to a crouch so both he and Yugi were hidden by the half walls of the hut structure.

"What is it?" He offered his hand to take Yugi's to kiss. "Come to see me off?"

"Oh more than that," Yugi whispered, slinking in closer. "Come to beg you to take me with you."

"You?" The prince blinked, taken aback. "Why I couldn't!"

"Please," Yugi rasped squeezing his hand tight, "_please_. Dirty me up. I'll be your page. Just let me leave with you."

"We'd have to paint you with soot." Mahado snorted. "Even then little one the shamans would never let you within the walls. It's a sanctuary for men. To have you there would distract and pervert the minds."

"Then take me to the city for a while," she prayed, hands coiled insistently round Mahado's. "I beg you. Please."

"None of this," the prince snorted patient but stern. "You are part of my father's family, you are part of this court, and you will stay here where you are needed."

"But Atemu-"

"The great wives will have you married off before the year is out," Mahado sighed, "you know it. Trust them to that. You'll marry a brother of ours and all will be well. Father's fifth son is single still. Likely they'll put you there."

"Atemu will have me hanged before then," Yugi snapped. "He'll never approve it."

"Marriages are not his to approve," Mahado retorted. "Now calm this nonsense. You think Atemu more a tyrant than he is. Go back to the wives, they'll be missing you."

With that order Mahado dragged Yugi close, kissed her brow, and releasing her hand turned gently but strictly away. It wasn't hateful no, worse than that, it was the stubborn leadership and kindness of an older sibling set to make a younger one reasonable.

Yugi had lost that line, that quick line, out to freedom.

_Damn_.

* * *

1 there is a slight chance next week I will post the first chapter for "Tale of Two Apartments" and that would mean that next chapter for "In the East" will be in a fortnight rather than a week. I'm not sure yet so we'll see! Don't panic; either way there will be an update next week

**Next Time**: Atem pulls the final straw, Anzu fosters more ill will than good relations, Mana comes close the birthing the babe, and Yugi is forced to make a deal with the Sultan.


	6. Espousal

Okay guys ended up writing more of this this week (blame my Medieval Europe major being due today) so tis "In The East" for you tonight. I'm still playing "Tale of Two Apartments" by ear and we'll see when that starts to go up! Enjoy the courtly back-stabbing~ Atemu's in his element tonight!

* * *

**Chapter 6: Espousal**

Yugi woke almost upside-down in her bed. She'd fallen asleep mostly dressed and on her stomach, under her hand the bookmarked pages hadn't gone astray all night though her legs had kicked out. Yawning she patted her face, fondled the book, and pulling it up in one weak had regarded the page. What had she been reading at the tail end of last night? She'd forgotten.

_There once was a brave hero called Jenzar who lived on the edge of a star_-

Right, of course, Yugi put the book down to one side and rolling onto her stomach splayed her arms straight before her on the bedding. Atemu had not moved her in the past fortnight since Mahado's grand exit from court but Yugi wondered still if Atemu even knew yet where she slept. The Sultan had been particularly quiet with himself since the exodus.

Yugi sighed, shoulders heaving, all her tension settled into the mattress. Should she have been up yet? Raising her head she found the misted, high set, stained glass panels along the domed ceiling were just lit. There was some grey glow there yet but nothing substantial. It couldn't be nay on dawn yet.

She traipsed, legs tangled, onto her side one arm lulling on her hip.

Why was she awake?

She felt late for something in a peculiar way. She had been sure before opening her aching eyes that there had been a knock on the door or the window. A _ratta-tat-tat_ had come from somewhere very purposefully when she was mostly asleep. Her mother used to say that fay folk knocked to wake you for the festivities. She used to say they so often wanted Yugi's kin for something or another. Yugi didn't quite believe there were fay here in the East though.

Yawning, too tired to yawn again, she found the air was bitterly cold and the sour scent from the ashen fireplace particularly thick. Drawing up the blankets she slumped onto her back.

Her hand fumbled dumbly for the book she had again rolled into, she lifted it;

-_so they were wed in secret, telling not a soul, and they held their wedding feast in peace until in the morning_-

Yugi's eyes were too heavy, she abandoned the book not quite sure why she'd picked up given her gaze lazed into a blur after a moment of attempted focus.

She settled her cheek into the sheets, her feet on his pillows, all tangled and sweated and cold and fell back to sleep.

They'd tried to warn her.

* * *

The day was lazy really, quite enjoyably, and though their new sovereign neglected breakfast with them no one was any the fouler for it.

On a high veranda, overlooking the wall and spying the river, Yugi laid out the cards for another game.

Someone was pregnant this morning, a new bride to an earl of theirs, and Lurek had the girl sitting with them on the bench braiding her hair as she shot off a million unassuming questions. She asked about the pains to expect, the specifics, the course of it all… they were taught a great deal as children by their mothers here but no one assisted in births until they had had their own first child. Yugi was a rare exception.

A boy, a eunuch, had just brought them cold stones from under the house to take the chill off the heat of the rising sun in the sky.

Briga, Atemu's fifth sister, emerged just at that moment as Yugi lay down the king of hearts. They didn't often use European cards given Yugi's multiple sets. Briga, paler than many of her siblings coming from Qazzadara and one of his foreign secondaries, looked sick about the mouth and red about the cheeks.

"Hmm? What now little spit?" Mana chortled affectionately, sighing to her approach.

"The Sultan's left council with the lords," she began to rush into it, "he's married the harlot in the night with a priest snuck in from Nusfar."

"_What?_" Kisara hissed, eyes flashing as they abandoned their game.

"Go! Shoo child!" Lurek pushed suddenly at their newly impregnated bride who had been the subject of much of the morning. The girl stumbled, gathered up her things, her contented face falling to horrors as she peaked over her shoulder in her fleeing.

"Go back spit," Mana grabbed her sibling, "he's done what? How? Who told you?"

"Lord Seth grabbed from the niche and told me to come find Kisara," Briga recounted with the same briskness. "He said the Sultan's told the menfolk that he married the Lady last night before today's dawn with witnesses and a priest! He wants to order a coronation for her!"

Kisara, Sesset, Yasil, Lurek, Mana'jet, Kuli… a whole sprawl of familiar faces began to rankle unattractively as Yugi caught her own stunned lips falling asunder. _No_... Surely not?

"A coronation!" Mana boomed.

"No, worse, go back," Kisara laughed slamming the hard outside of her fist against the table, "he's made to marry the trollop without us. He's disrespected the clans! His clan!"

"Unforgivable!" Lurek grunted. "He'll be lucky if the menfolk don't tend to war for this!"

"Oh to hell with them!" Mana spat again. "I'll go to war with him! I'll cut this fat infant out and leave it with their father to bash his head against the rocks! The damn fool!"

"Bastard!" Kuli raged, unable quite yet to form proper words.

The concept here was inconceivable. Atemu must've learnt this new trick from his ambassadorial work across the continent. The West had taught him this. Yugi well enough recognized this stripe of male delirium from her youngest days in the back of a covered caravan with her father's goats. In the days before Yugi wore jewels she'd heard a multiplicity of such madness recounted over camp fires in musted forests.

"Up! All of you up!" Mana'jet was inflamed, still squeezing the girl's arm, hobbling up however fat she stood with her babe. "Else you consent to let me sever his head!"

"Lords above!" Yugi gasped, wrenching up to take her side in assistance.

* * *

Anzu was wringing her fingers as she paced. Atemu had shuffled her from a council room into an isolated office. In the council room, even through the thick ornate wood, she could hear women screeching at her new, messily organized, husband of a few hours. Screeching was the wrong word however. These tiny forms here could boom and holler and shout as strongly as any man Anzu had ever met. It was astounding.

She paced.

She hadn't slept all night in preparation for the whole sticky affair. Now at noon she felt sick in the head and the gut about the whole thing. Her mother would've been ashamed; no ivory dress, no maids, no father, no happy family in attendance… that was all Anzu's mother would've expected of a generalized wedding let alone a royal affair. By the same token Anzu's mother would've not at all approved of her marrying a Moor converted or not.

She swallowed. The screaming continued. Atemu had insisted fast action was necessary and that once it was done it would be difficult to undo. She had little option really in griping. Her reputation was ruined if she backed away. She lost this man who wanted her so and loved her so if she let go of the fight. If she sat back and did the proper thing now she'd never make anything of herself let alone a queen. To be a queen was quite an aspiration for a third daughter of anybody, heiresses took preference in most cases of marriage, and…

She would've like to be a good, kind, queen. Sincerely she would've loved that chance to give generous alms, to make people happy, to have sons, daughters and honor but this was a strange country, an unconverted country, and she hardly knew if they'd all turn savage and eat her for this latest insult. She understood however how civilized their grievance was even if they expressed it so outrageously.

* * *

The coronation furiously rushed through though the citizens seemed confused by her presence in the carriage and the gentler members of court expected to take part in the proceedings did so with very apparent dislike reading their lines dully. The whole thing lacked the glitter of passion which these folk thrust into everything and they were so evident, so obvious, in their disdain she could hardly escape notice of it.

She had a crown now and a set of chambers gifted to her as she returned from the pagan temple in which she'd been anointed within. She had stood, meekly disturbed, under the jackal headed statues of grotesque god she didn't know and now in the rooms which were to be hers she found herself disturbed by the grandeur. She had never had anything of the sort which opened onto her when she entered with a trail of courtiers in waiting.

"These be your Majesty's rooms," one of Atemu's in-laws informed genteelly as Anzu tried to hold herself from gasping. "Through there is the bedchamber which adjoins to his Majesty's quarters."

"A shared bedchamber you say?" Anzu pivoted on her feet. She attempted the words as cordially as possible though her diction was still clumsy and she was sure she had misunderstood.

"Aye," was the curt, unelaborated, response. They had no patience for her just contempt they felt she must've returned them from her actions.

Wringing her fingers she was too confused to be settled, too put off to press.

"Your Majesty," Yugi raised two delicate fingers just behind, "perhaps I can assist?"

Her British was clear, clearer than anything Anzu had heard all day, a clear light in a sea of gibberish but Anzu didn't know if she should waver from it. Atemu hated this individual brazenly and held the frail woman responsible for half a dozen atrocities. The Sultan had attempted to keep Yugi from her coronation proceedings and a stead as one of the queen's ladies but had been unable to push the already irate councils so far.

"I…" She nodded firmly, trying to find some poise. "If you could help me to understand, your Grace, it would be most appreciated. The ladies say the Sultan and I are to have a shared bedchamber?"

"Yes Majesty," Yugi folded her arms before her taking a few meandering steps towards Anzu so she could lower her tone in a way that that assured it wouldn't ring around the room. "These dressing rooms and sitting rooms and so on are yours. The King has his own through an opposing door in the bedroom you shall share. It's custom."

"But surely the king has his own bed so he need not always be burdened with me?" Anzu supposed. It was another curiosity unheard of at home.

"Not so Milady," was the patient response, "here it is expected that the Sultan share always a bed with one of his wives. If you were, say, ill or… _indisposed_," she tiptoed about the issue, "then he would be, it is assumed, occupied with another wife of the harem. As queen your rooms lock with his as a sign of your utmost status within his life."

"Surely though…" Anzu's voice died. Another savage custom she tried to sympathize with but couldn't see good reason for. In her country a shared bed was a sign of a lowered status, an inability to afford more rooms. "Yes, I understand, but what of currently as the Sultan has no other wives?"

"Then I am sure they will make arrangements in his offices," Yugi shrugged, "if you are ever unwell or such. It should be no great feat."

"Yes, of course," she nodded. "Thank you."

"Majesty," she dipped into that elegant bow as if grateful to assist her.

* * *

It was at least a happy wedding night. Atemu took to another bed out of sight for her comfort occasionally or out of his own exhaustion and poor temper. Still nevertheless it was…

The court was not warming to her.

She'd had new clothes ordered; the finest fabrics she'd ever worn but in a more European style to preserve her virtue. The saris and like here she found too flirtatious, unladylike, but they were cooler so adaptations of a sort had to be made to her wardrobe within strict bounds of chasteness. The end product left her exhaustedly hot most days while still feeling hardly dressed from the absence of reliable weight.

She'd been sent to a court in Deutschland for part of her youth. She'd seen women of all nations flock under the queen's elegant knowledge of all subjects and her style. Anzu was no Margaret the Noble it seemed however. Her courtiers quietly rather scoffed at her apparel and seemed to find nothing in her to admire.

In the next weeks Anzu took to sewing a great deal given there was little conversation to be had. The great wives spoke to her infrequently and only when necessary. They seemed to pretend they could not understand her or her grasp of Atemu's tongue truly was so laughably childish that they could not.

She was…

There was a compacting, crushing, kind of weight in her diaphragm. Back across the seas her family was overjoyed and here she sat horribly isolated, unwanted. Her father wanted to send a younger sibling to court for Anzu to attempt to marry to someone of value but she had not yet answered his letter. Atemu was a good Christian but…

Discomfort, she pressed her legs, resumed sewing as the great lesser chatted round her still in a woven net of much stronger alliances and amicable heart. They were stuck fused to her though they did not approve. Anzu had been grafted to an existing organism, a gaudy extension, not connected truly to the pulsing lifeblood of the greater form. She did not understand them, they did not understand her.

Yugi glanced to her, she spotted the other. Yugi smiled sincerely but briefly before glancing away.

She would not speak to Anzu unless called upon but she tended to speak with warmth. Anzu had begun to sense Yugi's utter reluctance to being an engagement came not from lack of sentiment or desire but from a deserved caution about what her husband might do. Yet…

Anzu wanted her help and yet all at once she repulsed it.

Yugi had the kind of face, the kind of effortless charm among this queer savage place, that she expected of a witch. All she had managed to construe from Atemu was bizarre too. Women as doctors was absurd, gypsies as such was even more sacrilegious, and the way with which Atemu tried to illustrate Yugi's duties, of which the Sultan only had a vague knowledge, was likewise unnerving.

Anzu sensed vaguely, or worried, that while she offered alms Yugi had been very close by during Anzu's wretched string of bad luck. Yugi did as well hold very much to gain from her misfortune. Why should she hold for the queen any genuine sympathy then?

Neither did the details of Yugi's story align to her. She knew this place, the customs of this people, she had their respect and their affection in a way that seemed impossible or unsolicited. It confused Anzu and her youth on the isles had taught her to fear confusion.

Mana'jet moaned, as if hit, from the window where she'd been laughing. The grand Eastern princess buckled.

The courtiers and ladies alike sharpened their gaze towards her like trained hunting dogs. The eldest were immediately cocked in her direction, instantaneously, upon the slightest sound.

They were up and beside Mana'jet as, utterly unashamed, the princess groaned and hefted up her skirts to dip her fingers underneath. Anzu must've darkened sixteen shades before she managed to flounder away covering her eyes.

There was a sudden clucking, excitement that distilled to something warm and calm, that pulled Yugi from her seat to venture towards the princess. Peaking her eyes back through her fingers Anzu saw them helping the laden lady up and laughing as Mana seemed to swear with her eyes rolling back in mock exasperation or perhaps relief. Anzu could not fathom what exactly-

"We must leave your Majesty, I apologize," cawed Lurek to her; "Mana is to give birth."

"Birth?" Anzu paled, concerned at once for the state of Atemu's kin half within her care. "We must call the physicians!"

"Eh," Lurek huffed, swatting her hand. "We shall be her doctors Majesty. We of the gentler sex know better of the business of birth, do we not? Tis the only medical service they let us undertake. Leave all to us. We shall see her to her rooms. Little Hurii if off to warn her husband. You need not worry after anything my Liege."

"I…" she mumbled, lost once more like a raft, like refuse, tossed afloat at sea. "Yes, then… yes."

She sighed, she watched.

She was left alone with the courtiers of less noble birth though a few of the great lesser council still sat about oddly though she could see no rhyme or reason for it. The division seemed strange but who could she ask when the little ones laughed and played dumb to her?

* * *

They gave Mana chewing tobacco, things to lighten her head as well as ease the pain, and laughing fetched her treats and cool ornaments in-between the contractions. It would've been blasphemous to give her anything for the pain in the West, where the Church called the pain of childbirth a punishment for original sin, but in the East there was no such restriction. Pain was not some glorious rite of passage for a woman, it was not something she deserved, by the inherent flaws of her sex, to be subjected to. No, instead Mana was not expected to be at all lucid by the end of the labour. If anything the wives expected to get her drunk. She was even rather amicable to conversation for a little while before she broke totally into a sweat and the presses came on quicker.

Yugi held her hands, they stroked back her hair, and laid about the room helping themselves to the mead it was all a very calm, familial, affair. Birth was painful, agonized and grizzly but it was meant to be joyous and given the East had no objection to drugging their mothers things were much giddier.

Mana'jet was healthy from a life of good food and heat. She dilated well.

She swore viciously however, just like her warlord father, but no one thought less of her or told her not to. Kuli just laughed, amused, and squeezing her hand helped the woman slump back.

"Babe's wedged snug in there!" Mana panted angrily. "Lazy cad must be a boy!"

Her kin, her friends, all close by snorted. Laughing, sighing, Yugi and Sesset exchanged nods knowingly though, in the end, a girl actually arrived garlanded in foul congealed fluids.

Much to Anzu's surprise Mana would be up and about within the next eight days without great restriction.

* * *

By the end of the subservient month Atemu had little progress but he assumed to his comfort there had likewise been meagre backlash. The council of men and the lesser council were displeased but let them be. He had his wife, his one wife, and the rest would untangle. His family loved him too much to raid or thrust off into a proper, swords drawn, feud.

With a few sons between Anzu and himself they'd have ease at last and Atemu intended to spend his last years on earth focused to greater things while his princes got fat. For now that was the long term goal. His father had taught him to have prophecies of grandness. That said Qazzadara was an avid believer that kingship involved, for the most part, sticking your nose in the shit of other people's messes.

The main sticking point of discussion for his morning had been repairs to the grand temple within the city. After discussions about architecture and finishing out costs it was a matter of mathematics. Atemu was practical in most senses, outside love and religion, so to him the decision of what could and could not be done rested solely on the matter of what could afford to be done. Call him frugal but his father, a warlord for large swathes of his childhood with no house or walled palace and a swarm of enemies fighting for land, had always advised upon it. Debt made one man another's slave.

"How are we in taxes?"

It was Atemu's first question. He tallied it up next against army costs, foreign income, and a dozen lesser things before he landed upon the next crucial point; "and what of the household costs, how fairs my exchequer?"

"Your Majesty I can't say with any certainty."

"And why not?" Atemu rankled.

"We've heard nothing in the last month and a half from the great wives or her Majesty." His principal accountant shrugged menially. "I know the costs of the month but as I know not how fairs the house fund, given it is managed by them, I can't say how clear we stand there."

"Nothing from Kisara or…?" He felt his cocked shoulder fall.

"Nothing of the usual sort has been sent to me Sire," the portly, rough, little man sighed. "I made inquiries with the Lady Kisara but she insists to know nothing currently of the calculations."

"Nonsense," Atemu snorted, "rife nonsense. This ought to have been brought to me sooner."

"I apologise Majesty, I assumed you knew something of it from her Majesty," came the casually expectant response.

"It proves not." He shook his head to his own amusement. "I shall have to inquire into it. That's a net for another day. You shall have to come back to me with this."

* * *

He had sent them out and was to make his way over to Anzu and her harem of courtiers somewhere in the gardens, before he was caught by a new summons.

"Majesty," came the page, "his Lordship Durjah wishes to speak with you."

"Hmm?" Atemu glanced up, half upon his feet, till groaning he eventually beckon. "Right, let him in then."

The Baron of Durjah was a reasonably young man his father having only just departed leaving a house of ten children and three wives. Atemu had gathered that, remembered the name, only because that much had managed to occur since his return to the East and he had had time to surmise the effect of the story.

"Sir," Atemu spread his hand as the stern, hawkish, lad bowed. "What troubles you?"

"Your Majesty my family has oft demonstrated our affection and loyalty to your house, just in recent years your brothers could recollect that-"

"I am sure," he chortled half surprised raising his palm, "onto the crux though Sir because I assume we are both hungry given the angle of the sun beating my window. What's the strife that brings you here?"

"Sir I am not sure if you have been informed, I hope you have not, but my father's wives have for some time now been in conflict about the dividing of his fortune into our inheritances. I, seeing how the difficulties of opinion might protract the affair, partitioned the great lesser council of court for their overseeing in the matter but in a month or more I have heard nothing."

Atemu stiffened.

"My sisters need be married, I am missing opportunities to see them to good houses with no assurances of a dowry price to give their husbands, and my brothers need be provided for or sent to trades before they grow lazy from inertia." Durjah spread his hands giving view to a glimpse of his frustration and impatience. "I cannot imagine something I might've done to lead your Majesties to diverting or delaying the matter but if I am ignorant of some ill I beg your Majesty to let me right it."

"Sir you've done nothing of the sort," Atemu rallied immediately though with what he could scrape as the appearance of aloofness. "The great lesser council of the wives is simply deliberating the matter to great pains for the fairness of all. You need not worry. If the matter need be rushed then, dear Sir, you have my word I shall press them on it this very day."

"You would Majesty…?" Their came in the hawkish face a gentleness of relief kept at bay by hesitancy. "I would be most grateful for your press."

"I was to see the Queen this moment," Atemu swept his hand jovially as if nonplussed. "Give me a fortnight hence to have the issue finalized for you good Sir. These things take time and one can never rush the gentler sex to any excess you understand?"

He made a mockery of a face over the issue; a chortle and a wink. A man's joke made amongst equally put upon men and Durjah managed a wary smile at the concept.

"As any son well knows Majesty," he sighed before straightening to bow deep again. "I shall not detain you then. I'll hold you only a moment longer to express my sincerest thanks and my deepest apologies for doubting your kindness."

"Say no more kind Sir and off with you," Atemu dismissed his spine tightening like a coil.

His in-laws, sisters, and the Gem Faher no doubt had made a net for he and the Queen in their bitterness upon the marriage it seemed.

* * *

Atemu tried, in an effort to soothe himself, not to grasp Anzu away from the ladies too tightly. Anger was for lesser men, raging was for tyrants he so often tried to school himself, but this morning had, in a very short turn of hours, evaporated into an unravelling thread of disasters.

The more he glanced the more he found askew. The accounts had not been ordered for the month, the marriages of two prominent knights were in limbo, there were no festivities at hand expected for the luscious court which thrived on little more than amusements and religion. He was, as he attempted to organize inter-continental agendas, squatting in a hen house of disarray that had come out from under him. He consented it was half his own fault for having expected better of his jilted lesser council of wives. They had halted utterly everything they were supposed to be supervising.

Upon finding her Atemu realized, worse, that the Queen was alone something his own mother had never been. Anzu startled up from her sewing, smiled and forcing a grimace of his own Atemu couldn't bring himself to sit.

"Is something wrong Love?" She tilted softly, disturbed by his expression. "You look pale."

"Indeed," he snorted, letting his hand slap into his side dismally. "We are in a right mess this morning."

"What's happened?" She chorded tighter. They had plagues in Europe she feared would follow into the desert.

"Have Kisara, Mana and Sesset approached you for consult yet?" He supposed. He theorized his dear relatives were washing out their pale queen.

"Yes…?" Anzu cocked one shoulder blandly. "What about Dear?"

"Marriages, accounts, festivities…" he waved his hand flippantly, "_anything_."

"Well…" Anzu pondered, laying the round of fabric down thoughtfully, "they did, yes."

"_Well?_"

"It seemed unsightly what they wanted," she sagged. "I assumed they were trying to tease me into trouble by making me meddle. I told them that marriages were for husbands and sons to organize, that accounts were the responsibility of trained house stewards and that I knew nothing enough about their religious calendar to organize anything so they best ask you."

"Anzu, _love_," he strained. "I swear my kin, furious or not, will not tease about business."

"But how am I…?" She floundered very elegantly, quietly, wringing open her fingers. "Those are my duties?"

"_Yes_," Atemu swore.

"But_ marriages_-"

"Here those are the duties of a queen." He held up his palm gently. "I know it's not your custom and I know it concerns you but it's the nature of the country. It's so ancient I doubt I could change it if I tried. The important wives, women and carriers in court organize the marriages of all not just pose difficulties to ours. They tend to agreements over dowries, run the household expenses, the inheritances, stables, parties, feasts, births…" He gestured. "My duties are war, politics, religion, agriculture, education and trade."

"But you're King, surely if you say so-"

"The wives will never respect my authority in those matters to make a decision. I've not been raised to know any of it and the men are busy enough." He elaborated. "Likewise however the Great Lesser can't do anything without your approval now. I suspect they're playing that game to the advantage of embarrassing me. Rolling over on purpose to make a show of the mess."

She paled, squeezed her sewing between her fingers and seemed not to know what to say next.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, "I didn't know."

"It's alright," he softened, "_I _should've explained. It's not your custom. I've been too assuming of them and too busy with men's business. I lost my head. This is _my_ fault."

"I worry though," Anzu tripped carefully, "that I won't make the right decisions. I don't know this country or this kind of business or history any better than a stranger. What if I cause you more trouble?"

"My sisters and my in-laws would not let you," Atemu swore pressing his palms together, "whatever they might wish they can't afford to let you stumble. Surely they promised you that?"

"They said I should speak to the _Ruskuyla _if I needed guidance or…" she wrung her fingers. "I didn't understand. Their translations didn't make sense."

"Heh," he scoffed, "they meant Yugi once more I'm sure of it. They took to calling hersuch trite titles under my father. It's more garble trying to raise her as something she's not. She's been acting as surrogate queen and I sure they want to drive home a comparison between you both. The wives said to go to her?"

"They said it might best help us all understand each other, that the Rus-_Ruskuyla_ could tell me what to do and how to organize and…" she tailed off, saw no point in continuing. "But if they meant Yugi… she's a witch isn't she? You've always said and I can't _imagine_…"

"I won't…" Atemu sighed trailing off what escaped his mouth next pained him. "Let me speak with Yugi, in private, I'll tarry a truce or a solution somehow. We have to clean up a mess now or else… You will do as I decide won't you?"

"_Anything," _she swore, rising to try and reach for his hands. "I'm so sorry Love. I didn't realize. I didn't want to bother you by thinking I wasn't mingling well with your family. I should've said something, asked."

"It's alright, never fear," he squeezed her fingers. "We shall sort this."

Even if Atemu had to drag himself to the satanic altar of the only lady at court who spoke enough British for Anzu to understand just as the Great Lesser no doubt wanted…

* * *

Yugi's quarters were very grand. Atemu had seen no reason to strip them or move her just yet in all the chaos of switching sultans. He couldn't scheme how quite exactly he would do such a thing either. The little white witch was too sacred, too loved, within these walls. His brothers in the north and the south, in fact on all points of the compass, would've rallied up to her defence had Atemu attempted much against her. For now he had simply hoped to make the sinner invisible, unimportant and yet here he found himself at the gilded red doors of Babylon's own whore.

It was _humiliating_.

No doubt the wives, unwilling to go to war, had expected to wreck their vengeance on Atemu in such a way. He had insulted them and now they intended to rub his face in the bed he'd made.

The guards, tall and pitch, were muscled like horses but silent as statues and only consented to allow him in because of his sacred right as their sovereign. They didn't complain, they never would, but there was the lingering unease in their eyes Atemu had picked up the ability to glean from decades living with them. The well-armed, tongueless, eunuchs could communicate in their own way without ever lingering upon a dark word.

Atemu found the room airy upon entrance, the incense cleared for the beached scent of moist sand drifting from open windows out of sight. The first meter or so was nothing but blank ivory tiles under a studded cobalt and gold doomed ceiling barricaded by a new row of thick screening curtains.

He tapped his still sheathed dagger upon the nearest wall, knocking essentially to announce himself though the sound of the great double doors opening should've been herald enough.

"Majesty?"

One pearly hand drifted, striking, into view as the witch followed after it. Alert, afraid even, she stood still half between the curtains black and coral-grey saris still glittering with golden embroidered thread. The stretch up her thighs was etched in the shape of lilies and berry heavy ferns that drew Atemu's eyes down then up; sexualised almost.

"Have you spoken with the wives?" He stowed his dagger back. "I find today nothing's been decided upon by the lot of you for the month. The whole council seems to have gone away."

"Yes," Yugi's hand fell and her shoulders with it. "They asked for my confirmation on matters several times and I told them I would not intercede over the Queen. It's not my place anymore."

"It is if I say it is."

"You haven't yet Majesty," she shrugged coyly. "Now, how can I serve you?"

"You're to resume control," Atemu ordered though it cut his teeth to even let it pass his lips, "and you're to teach her Majesty everything she requires in the meantime till she's ready to take the helm."

"Anything," the witch promised. "Provided of course, your Majesty, that you will officially grant me permission before the wives."

"Excuse me?" He lilted sharply.

"I will do anything you need," Yugi assured softly but with sternness, "but I am very aware, Majesty, that you find me…_unfavourable_. If I take this office up without your explicit permission then I seem to be insulting you and, worse, if I should upset you, gods forbid, you could turn my service record against me. I won't do that."

"It sounds very much as you're threatening me or, worse still, calling me deceitful. Either are treason."

"I wouldn't dream of it Sire." Yugi murmured. "I would love the opportunity to help her Majesty in any way possible. I was once a stranger in a strange land. All I ask is that you assuage my foolish concerns. I couldn't bear to be seen as going against you and I won't shame the house so."

"And if I won't?"

"Then I will wear whatever you think is deserving," the witch offered temptingly, spreading those coy hands docilely, "_of course_ Sire."

"Then I will give you permission before Kisara, Mana and Sesset." He decided tight as nails.

"Thank you for your graciousness Majesty." She bowed low.

"You're very lucky." He murmured. Not even a stumble, a stutter, on the flow of the words.

"I appreciate that." Yugi kept her head down.

* * *

1 Jenzar~ *wiggles eyebrows at the oldies*  
2 Women can't be doctors in the East (although Yugi fights the tradition) but they do proceed over births. However, as Yugi mentioned, only women who have already had their first child can watch and assist in the births of other women.  
3 It wasn't actually legal to give mothers pain relief until the reign of Queen Victoria who, as the mother of a good dozen kids and the Queen of bloody England,_ demanded_ it. As well she should've!  
4 Well the women told Atemu Anzu couldn't do it but after he married her anyway the wives decided to demonstrate who_ could_ do the duties~  
5 I promise this is a **puzzleshipping/blindshipping story.** I promise. Yes, marrying Atemu and Anzu is step one of my evil plan to get Yugi and Atemu together. I know that sounds insane but damn it kids work with me here!

**Next Time**: Atemu stews, Anzu wishes, Yugi provides the queen a service free of charge, and a lovely new ambassador arrives in the East, while the Gem Faher and the Sultan share a few choice words on the matter of marriage.


	7. Longings

Hey kids, don't break anything and enjoy yourselves~

* * *

**Chapter 7: Longings**

"Sire?"

Anzu touched his hand, brushing, from her seat beside him.

"Hmm?" Atemu perked to attention gruffly.

"Are you quite alright sweetheart?"

"Of course," he chuckled, squeezing her fingers and kissing the back of her palm dismissively before returning to his surveying of the court.

Zazark lifted Yugi, dazzling somehow still in the grey and black mourning frocks she had garbed herself in since the death of Atemu's father, over his head once more through the final rumble of the dance. As the sitars died down Yugi's feet touched the floor, fingers slapping the prince's shoulder, and laughing the pair of them made faces at each other Atemu guessed to the effect of some note on Zarzak's recklessness.

Laughing still, brighter this evening than Atemu had seen the witch in two months, Yugi swept back to the periphery just down from Atemu's dais raised head-table. Mana'jet passed the baby girl, her first born, over the table top laden with the evening's refreshments to Yugi. The Gem Faher swept in the child, cradled it, kissed it-repulsed Atemu turned away.

It was humiliating.

The word would not exit his temples but lingered there for long stretches of the day as if mocking Atemu.

To give his consent, his approval, to the witch's presence or meddling was heinous to Atemu's constitution at the best of times. Yet he found it perceptively worse to watch how everything simmered quietly back to a state of surreal order under the pale wasp's instruction. With the great lesser council placated by Yugi's authority, reasonable to dealing with her, the marriages had been settled, Durjah's inheritance cut up with the precision of years of experience and while tonight brought another lovely banquet tomorrow Atemu would have a precise record of the house and stable accounts from the wives.

The witch was running his house.

The witch was instructing his wife.

The witch Atemu had hoped to make invisible, less loved, less appealing and eventually annex from his sacred home was comfortably settled like a festering cancer. Worst yet she sat in control of affairs as if Atemu's father had not yet died and affects had not changed hands. The traditional progress of the house was unchanged and the great wives had their normalcy just as they had wanted it from Atemu through a marriage.

Atemu had been mocked with this whole monstrous affair. He didn't miss the implication that Yugi was effectively running his house in the stead of his wife. He didn't for a glimmer lose sight of the fact that his in-laws and siblings had effectively highlighted his wife's incompetency. They wanted to mock him with it Atemu was sure.

"Shouldn't you be with them?" Atemu grumbled to her.

"Oh but I'd rather be with you," Anzu smiled.

"Surely you would enjoy the company of more talkative friends?" He proposed but he saw in her eyes that the wives still were no exceptional friends of hers. "Or at least you could learn more?"

"I could," she agreed quietly, straining her smile, "but…"

"But _what?_" Atemu grunted rounding on her.

"It still, I confess, seems unsightly." Anzu posited at first. She inhaled, thought, and deciding made her motion to turn to him. "Sire don't you think we ought change things here for the better? Make things more civilized? Now you have the power-"

"Oh God," Atemu moaned into his palm, slipping his hand from Anzu.

"But, Love," she stressed, "you can convert this whole country to a great Christian nation."

"I'm sure I could," he spat turning, tired, "but currently I have more pressing problems. That is aside from the fact it would be a monumental task enough if I weren't already a _laughing stock_."

"Then what better way to show the people your foresight tha-" This was important to her, to him truthfully, but tonight was not the night. She'd chosen her time badly.

"The problem is not the savages in the streets," Atemu hissed coming very close and quiet to her over the armrest of the throne, "the problem is that I look a fool still for endeavouring in marrying you. Do you not understand the importance of you winning their acclaim to assist mine? Are you so lazy you'd have me drag a whole ring of them to church with my bare hands?"

"I…"

Anzu couldn't look away.

Atemu could feel the familiar sting of curious eyes more as a sixth sense but to him it seemed very physical as if the curious, bemused, glance of Yugi was singeing his skin.

"Love, I…" Anzu stuttered, backtracking, realizing her error.

"Oh never mind," Atemu groaned, "I am to bed. Do what you like!"

* * *

Anzu never did, in the next two dreadfully blistering summers, properly take the reigns. All that could be done was to make some sense of the matter and achieve some balance.

Anzu still found the business expected of the gentler sex utterly inappropriate while she understood the façade of control was necessary. She tried, at length, to maintain something of a public face upon an eventual mastery of the language and customs however tentative. Each new layer of custom only sought to revile her a little deeper however into her habits of prayer and isolation.

Yugi, though she rather officially acted on Anzu's accord, was for all purposes the great purveyor and voice of court yet again. The Queen heard her advice, her guidance, over her sewing and making use of their tentative alliance, perhaps friendship, deferred all final decision to Yugi's discretion.

The wives acclimatized themselves to the idea of thanking her, of saying things in the Lady Anzu's name, but it lacked sincerity under the veneer. They grew to have a kind of mild fondness for her but it was absent. She could, at times, be across the room from them as they stressed only to have them burst into pulsations upon Yugi's arrival from breakfast.

Nonetheless efforts were made to obscure the situation from Atemu. He wasn't wholly ignorant, of that all parties were sure, but he seemed disposed to his Lady's failings. Anzu found he, eventually surrendering however bitterly, compromised that if she could not take full helm of court then he could not begin to convert anyone and she would have to be happy with their life hence.

It didn't bother her so much now. The secret of her faith and her imaginings for a great Christian future in a land of wilderness were almost romantic to her eventually. It all became something of a self-imposed martyrdom of endurance upon her part. Especially given she'd invite none of her close kin to court still lest they too were corrupted. Atemu was a good man, a good husband and a good Christian however his temper flared and his resentment bustled. She took happiness in that and she hoped, eventually, that upon the birth of a son he might be convinced to move…

She had a world of sighs for her windows most days.

"Something wrong, milady?" Yugi supposed one leg cocked across the knee of its twin in that effortlessly perfect way of hers a sewing needle working across her lap.

Yugi had taken to joining her in her lengthy meditations with the embroidery. Anzu found she liked her demure manner and her way of smiling in silence. Occasionally some arcane gesture of hers, something eerie or another, would repulse her from Yugi briefly Atemu's accusations of witchcraft never utterly exorcized. At other times, after Yugi had ceased wearing her mourning garb of black, her general appearance being attractive and so like Anzu yet so juxtaposed and contrary would upset the Queen. For the most part however they had something of a tentative and pleasant peace amongst each other.

"I worry, you know," she confessed in English sighing again, "that God may not see fit to grant me a son or any other child."

"He's certainly been slow coming with your first," was Yugi's curt however good humoured answer. It cut Anzu without intending to and seeing that the Lady lay down her work. "You and his Majesty lay together often don't you?"

"Well that is private." Anzu cautioned.

"Not if you are queen I regret," Yugi sighed back with her own lightness and seemed to mean no ill.

"I… well, we do," she murmured softly. "Not with startling regularity because you know how these things soften but we do and I love him desperately, of course."

"Of course," the pale creature nodded, "you would have to."

"Hmm?" She snapped. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh nothing cruel," she softened the hint of how she quite evidently disliked his Majesty, "but one has to love their husband in all conditions don't they?"

"Yes, they do." Anzu agreed curtly.

"Well on the matter," Yugi laughed, "unfortunately it is one of the few things I can't help you with milady though I would love to give you such a happiness. So long as you are healthy, regular in your habits and you and his Majesty lay together often and at the right times then there's no reason to worry but to wait."

"Yes," she murmured uncomfortably, though she had no concept of whatever the lady meant by the '_right times'_ and was hesitant to consult her for witch's knowledge. "I suppose you are right. Patience in a cardinal virtue."

"You have that and grace in droves," Yugi assured her casually.

* * *

Anzu was waiting that evening in the bedchamber that she shared more regularly with his Majesty than they actually made use of. He shrugged in late in the evening, her at her reading still awake and finding her so had no shortage of kisses for her cheek as he sprawled himself down exhausted from the sun and sand.

"An amicable hunt I hope?" She teased. "You were gone all the day."

"Mighty," he snorted good humouredly, "caught three lions."

"Wondrous!" She laughed.

He had fallen back into some of his native habits but nothing too unsightly. She could forgive him all that given compromise had to be made if not for entertainment then for the sake of consorting happily with his kin who were amused by wild things.

"And you my dear?" he sighed slipping his hands above his head.

"Thinking of you, missing you," she answered, "but that aside the day was well. I spoke with the Gem Faher."

"How unfortunate for you," Atemu answered, yawning next into his hand with his eyes closed.

"You know my dear I find her still surprisingly kind if wily." Anzu murmured gently trying to infiltrate the idea into an unhospitable house. "She is, if a little queer, a sweet thing generally. Keen to help, inexhaustibly useful and reliable, I find her generous and I confess I see why your kin like her."

"Hmm," the Sultan murmured dazedly distant and unconvinced. "You know Love all of Satan's whores are pretty. It stands to reason you would find one who was friendly."

"Yes, well," she sighed, patient still. "I thought to myself today, you know, no one is untouchable to the word of God. If she could see the logic of heaven, well then… I am sure with her assistance I could change the tone of things. Don't you think?"

"She comes from the continent," Atemu answered, closed-eyed face impassive to her. "She knows the sermons and she's very skilled still at flouting them. If a lifetime in the cradle of Christ couldn't convert her I suspect the only word of God she still remains subject to is the fire."

"Atemu," she strained, unsettled by the violence. "Think of charity-"

"I think of crusades," he answered rolling to his side.

"I…" She shuddered, putting her book aside to lean over him. "Oh let's not quarrel. I am sorry to speak out of turn. My heart bleeds too often and my sentimentality is too dire. I am sorry Dear…"

He sighed, eventually slipping his lids apart in her observance to regard the darkened wall beyond the bed with some degree of contemplation.

"No Love, fear not," he dismissed, "I have no quarrel with you. I am just tired. I had hoped to have her gone a long time ago. It's a delicate wound."

"Then I won't touch it," she promised, leaning to kiss his cheek.

And his jaw…

And his neck…

* * *

Yugi held the elegantly crafted cup in her hands. Her hands cradled it, lap crossed beneath it, and towards the window with her hair all in tangles from the day blew gently across it as if urging on a fire.

One of Qazzadara's gifted diamonds sat stewing with the herbs as it was all she had or wanted to have of any relation to Atemu. It seemed strong enough however sitting on a few drops of her blood and against a few flowers. She had the Queen's hair, one of her needles… much stronger tokens of Anzu which should suit things better at any rate. Mana'jet, mindless of her part in Yugi's plots, had gifted the tiny brass baby spoon as a way for Yugi to always have something of one of her multiplying godchildren.

She blew across the surface of the tiny cluster of crushed up things her air filling, sparking, with the presence of a sea breeze.

It was an old trick, unreliable, but the best one could do without the Queen submitting to proper medicine or proper witchcraft.

Yugi clasped it, fingers coy, and after three thick exhalations to fill the pot settled on the next step.

She burnt the herbs, oils and blood with the Queen's hair and needle. The smell was sour, metallic, too thickened with strange blooms to be entirely pleasant. In the morning she'd have cleared it out with the windows all open.

The little brass baby spoon she, foolishly in hindsight, pocketed for herself with great tenderness.

The diamond, the soon-to-be father's proxy token, Yugi kissed and pocketing it intended to sacrifice it to the river in a few moments. She would hurl it, with her good over arm, from the girdling wall into the dark water with the crocodiles for the gods to take. They made diamonds everlasting, like themselves, so Yugi assumed they quite liked them.

Atemu still, probably until Yugi's death, would claim the Gem Faher had never done anything for him.

Yugi wouldn't have, wouldn't have wanted to, if the lazy tyrant could do anything himself and if the Lady wasn't so…

She was a kind thing, deserved a present. Yugi would give her this one free of charge just the way her mother had occasionally dealt out little niceties without permission or notice from anyone. Yugi's mother used to hold her fingers to her lips in the dark as they sat under the stars and warn Yugi not to breathe a word of it all to her father or the lovely miss or missus who had given them milk on the road and who soon would have a very abrupt turn of fortune.

* * *

The great wives by tradition were more concerned with each other and the running of the country than the foreign guests such as the courtiers and the ambassadors among whose number Atemu had once counted himself. Yugi spotted the Sultan often engaged in conversation with several of them. Yugi had sighted him that night with one such man as he made himself comfortable in the throne.

It was of some surprise when, catching her eye, Atemu beckoned for Yugi.

Their relationship had not healed over the course of the last two years. It was a sort of summer in their seven years of mutually festering dislike however. The Lady facilitated that Atemu have some use for Yugi and for Yugi to have some shield from the King.

Atemu only endured her Yugi sensed: he said pleasant things with empty smiles to give the appearance of unity, he touched Yugi when he had to, but it was all very brief and uncomfortable. On both sides the brushing of any patch of skin seemed to be as painful as sticking one's hand in a pallet of crocodile shit.

Yugi assumed she was wanted for something concerning the newest, grizzled, ambassador from Ryssia who stood pale as death itself beside the Sultan. They were exchanging pleasantries, had been for some moments and as Yugi reached the opposing side of Atemu's seat the Sultan did not turn to greet her though the foreigner glanced over rather pointedly.

Atemu's arm, without his eyes, hooked round Yugi's middle and drew her in as the King continued to speak. Yugi stiffened, viciously displeased but unable to give the appearance of as much before their guest. Atemu directed Yugi into a seat mostly on the arm of the throne and the King's strong thigh.

Yugi supposed for a moment, hoped actually, that the King had mistaken her for someone else however ridiculous that seemed.

The men of the East were affectionate as a rule with kin and cohorts. Mahado and Qazzadara had held Yugi across themselves to squeeze, pet and chuckle but Yugi had not had the pleasure of such male tenderness for since their departures. Kisara's husband and Seth would swing Yugi round, embrace her tightly, but the touch didn't linger so long.

Had it not been Atemu, had it been anyone _but_ Atemu, Yugi may've contented herself at the absent intimacy of it.

"And who is your dashing associate?" The Ambassador diverted eventually after a tenuous moment wherein Yugi tried to school her features into calmness.

"Good Sir this is the Lady Yugi, our Gem Faher," Atemu cocked his chin arm flexing round Yugi's middle as if to remind his trapped servant to smile as the pressure of the King's arm rankled Yugi in new ways. Suddenly Atemu looked her square in the face. "Yugi may I introduce you to his lordship Sir Timaeus our new ambassador from the Tsar."

"Tis a pleasure to meet you Sir," Yugi thrust her hand out eagerly for some excuse to escape from the little nest.

"Tis all mine." Timaeus twisted the fingers to kiss the back of Yugi's palm instead. "I must say your appearance struck me across the room. Are you a lady in waiting to her Majesty perhaps?"

"Indeed but I did not come by this place that way," she answered, hand released and hip still trapped under Atemu's lazy fingers which had settled in the groove. "I was initially of service to the late Sultan Qazzadara. His Majesty has reappropriated me."

"Fascinating," Timaeus appeared genuine as he grinned. "I should suppose that there is quite a story there to tell?"

"Perhaps," Yugi shrugged mildly, of the opinion boasting was unattractive when unnecessary, "but what of you Sir? Are you enduring the heat well?"

"It is ungodly compared to my homeland," Timaeus sighed although harmlessly so, "in Ryssia the snow can swallow whole houses overnight and here I am sure there are many who have never seen such a thing as now."

"As am I," she nodded lazily, "still it's a beautiful country in the summer if I recall? Up near Roschk'ark there's a wood along a river that's all pale with daisies after the worst ends."

"Yes indeed!" The pale man laughed, evidently pleased and surprised. "Why Majesty I must confess you have a whole of array of interesting and skilled companions."

"So I've been told," the Sultan grinned, "but, my good man, might I ask you for a moment of privacy perhaps? I have just recalled what I intended to tell milady here."

"Of course Majesty," ever the courtier and trained specifically not to offend Timaeus was quick to step down and away with a courteous smile to Yugi.

As the perk of Yugi's lips peeled away her stomach dropped likewise with a kind of wet anxiety. She was naïve enough to hope, desperately, that just maybe after all this time Atemu had softened some of his vicious resolve toward her.

The King's face however, as his eyes darted sharply across Yugi's features with a pronounced focus, was not promising to that effect.

"Do you know the Queen was singing your praises to me last evening?" He began casually.

"No Majesty."

"She surprised me to be so bold," he murmured, "but you know I didn't think much of it as anything bizarre until I heard something quite odd this morning."

Yugi wouldn't bite.

"One of the Lords told me that, last night, he was certain he saw you on the outer wall throwing something into the river." Atemu snorted. "Strange isn't it? What on earth would you be doing up at such an hour? Hmm?"

Yugi's gut tightened but her features had no space left to fall given she was already quite cold from the eyes circulating outward. She sighed however eyes rolling back as she shook her head. Of course this man would find some gripe to exploit. Yugi had hoped too much for a second.

"I couldn't sleep Majesty," Yugi snorted, "I was throwing stones. It was childish. You can't honestly be concerned by that?"

"I wouldn't be if it were anyone but you," Atemu retorted curtly. "Besides something else concerns me."

"I'm sure a great number of things do." She answered coyly teetering upon an insult and sympathy which caused Atemu to frown.

"The wives haven't found you a husband in two years." The Sultan elaborated. "You ought to fix that briskly. Take Falker if you wish, _any_ of my brothers, for all I care take the damn Ryssian but get it done."

"You know what pains me Majesty?" Yugi snapped rounding on him, one foot off the tiles, as she turned into Atemu's lap. "I have been rather distracted from marriage prospects by my tireless work trying to please you. Now I think that if all men are so ungrateful I should not even begin to consider settling in bed with one."

Yugi pushed up, Atemu grumbled, and slapping back the hand that reached for her she pounded down from the dais through the rather bemused crowd.

* * *

Yugi was so furious, so…

She lost sight of where she was until she'd reached the side of a niche where at statue of the moon goddess sat kneeling. She knew the palace so well she couldn't have been lost she simply had ceased to care where she was. It was the motion of flying fast from the grand hall that supressed or expressed some of her frustration but…

Growling, choking, she dug her nails into her scalp and curled her hands into her hair. She yanked, ached and tugged cursing viciously under her tongue until in a sudden impulse of rage she pounded her fist hard into the smooth stone wall.

_Thump_.

_Tug_.

Another vicious slew of pained, tenuous, curses flew off her teeth and whining she surrendered her weight into the wall to thump her forehead into the stone and pound her fists.

She swore, the saliva hitting her teeth and moaning into the stone she thumped her forehead again gently as the burning, gritty, sting of her gently bleeding fist started to seep into her focus.

Qazzadara who held Yugi's hands in the last days of his life not afraid to be weak before her…

Mahado who still corresponded often with her through letters and was so moderate, so temperate, in his nature that not a soul could dislike him…

Yugi recalled in that breath, so acutely, the strong boned and muscled side of Mahado's chest which she had leant into. She recalled the tenderness with which the towering, blackened, prince kissed all his friends as if they were his first born children. She recalled how Qazzadara was so sharp that even at eighty he could spin the foulest jokes at a moment's notice till they were bantering across the room harmlessly. Yugi recalled how inviting the old man could be, how willing to hear of others but how careful he was to construe the truth from the rabble.

Those were the qualities of grand kings; kings greater than any Christian tyrant in Europe. Here Yugi sat in a glorious palace, a beautiful home, with a slew of magnificent souls who loved her so relentlessly as one of their own. Noble, wealthy, lords who like Zarzak and Falker were kind and generous with everything existed here in multitudes. To every sex here there was a place and power. Everything here had beauty.

Yet Yugi stood today under the reign of an impotent wretch as incapable and snivelling as any pauper in Brittany.

Hissing she hit the side of her fist into the wall once again.

She slumped.

There was a very quiet inhale that passed through her, a great heaving exhaustion of letting go as the worst of the white hot anger faded and lushed into stillness as Yugi closed her eyes.

She could've been a mourner.

There was a guttural grunt behind her and, raising her head, Yugi cocked her chin over the yoke of her shoulder to find one of the dark six foot guards to her right. The man was armed, very broad and substantial, and he grunted round his thickened lips and his silver piercings the only way he could with his tongue removed.

Yugi tucked back her hair, turned and cradling her bleeding wrist tilted. _What?_

The guards had a grace to them which came from centuries of willingness and sacrifice. They were noble and this man extended his hand, pointing, towards Yugi's bleeding fist.

Yugi gave it fingers parted and unafraid as if she was showing the towering man a rather unassuming wilted flower from the river bank. The guard's sword clinked against his side as he hunched, taking Yugi's tiny hand between both of his and using his fingers to extend the smaller's. Yugi was so unworried by him because these never moving, never speaking, fixtures were such a part of the palace to see one so contemplative was mythical. The guards were as much statues here as the sphinxes.

"It will be alright," Yugi whispered.

The guard released Yugi's hand from his long, scared, fingers and standing his full height once again with that impassive, immovable, expression offered his elbow to the courtier.

Yugi laughed, felt a smile tug her and taking the guard's arm allowed herself to be led towards the temple where the candles would still be lit as the clerics and the mathematicians mapped the stars. There would be a physician awake no doubt who could bandage her scrapes in the sandalwood din of the closed space.

She lent her cheek into the man's arm.

* * *

The whole instance had been very much forgotten by all parties, excluding Atemu and Yugi, within the next three months. The great lesser council of the wives had no interest luckily in having Yugi married or finding her a suitable husband however considering they already had a target in mind. Atemu, as always, underestimated the endurance of the lesser sex.

That whole scheme would not be assisted by Yugi, mind, given she had another on her cards and was quite happy to see that come to light in her favour eventually when the Lady Queen bowed her head to her very quietly and said-

"I ought not be telling you this before his Majesty or some other, so we must keep your knowing between us till I tell them all, but I do believe we have had something for our patience."

"You're with child?" Yugi supposed of her with a tight grin as they turned into the half-darkness of the curtain's shadow.

"I do think," she nodded trying to restrain the beaming smile and the flutter of excitement.

She was so pleased with it unlike the casual way with which those here took such news. Women here had secretly advanced medicines, children were plentiful. After considering both societies Yugi had no doubt the logic of the medical sciences in the East was far superior. From that every man could afford to have three wives and six sons. The medicine here, the tradition here, insured almost that every woman could expect to fall pregnant, carry well and deliver well to live longer. The Europeans might've called their quality of life witchcraft or idolatry but Yugi had simpler suppositions of it all.

Anzu however coming from the dreary distant shore of Yugi's birth, though she had been on the continent and not the isles of Brittany, did not expect things so easily. The gentler sex had a harder time of everything in Europe, multitudes died in childbirth. To her this was something preciously gotten, easily lost and potentially ruinous to herself. It must've made her afraid and yet she was so pleased, so licked, so excited…

Yugi was glad.

* * *

1 this story is not afraid of time skips. It loves time jumps. It thinks they're sexy. So we shall all adjust because things take a long time to happen in a world without internet or cars or, ya know, indoor plumbing…  
2 Well what do you know Yugi is _actually_ a witch. Oops. I'll be damned Atemu was right!

**Next Time**: Timaeus attempts polite conversation- a _lot_- as Yugi attempts not to lose her temper at new Western 'doctors' and the father-to-be attempts not to smirk quite so widely in front of everyone. Hopefully Atemu and Yugi can manage to sit together at least without causing a scene…


	8. Trimesters

Okay kids, we are here yet again! I enjoy this week's chapter and hopefully so will you, can't wait to hear everything that pops into your heads anyway.

* * *

**Chapter 8: Trimesters**

Yugi didn't want to do this.

She rang her fingers behind her back, let the ivory and gold pieces clink into each other on her wrists, and glancing to the huge guard to her left gave the ghost of a smile. The eunuch gave no response but those deep dark pupils for a second flickered to Yugi. Her blood had taught her to always remember the faces of one's friends and enemies. Yugi's fist had healed, faded, but her distinct memory of the guard's face had not.

"Milady," came a pleased drawl from behind her.

From the rough, accented, tone Yugi knew before spinning that it was Timaeus.

"Sir!" Yugi dipped lightly at the knees, her fingers still laced behind her back with latent nervousness. "How stand you this fine day?"

"In great health and good spirits," he assured with his own responding bow, "and you too I trust?"

"I have the fortune of most excellent health."

"And business with the Sultan?"

"Yes indeed," she nodded curtly, still waiting before the doors to the private offices of the caramel King's quarters.

"Business before all pleasures here I find," Timaeus snorted.

"Ah but by having so much business we get off with having extraordinary pleasures," Yugi answered with mild mannered cheek but plucked with a bored restlessness. She glanced furtively to the door, still expectant, and as Timaeus continued found herself only half engaged.

"I too have business with his Majesty," he revealed with that gruff comfortable way of his, tucking his hat under his arm. "I am not surprised to find you likewise engaged but I am to see you without your flurry of attendants."

"With the Queen presently," came Yugi's vague but to the point response.

"I shall have to be your company then."

"Fine company," Yugi snorted playfully, glancing again impatient.

"You seem engaged with something dear Mistress?" Timaeus construed, leaning a little to his side as if to try and see what round Yugi was so exciting.

"Her Majesty has caused all matter of excitement your Excellency," Yugi sighed, forcing her smile up.

"Yes, most wonderful news that," the Ryssian agreed. "Must have you all in quite a splendid rush."

"Something to that effect," she dismissed.

"Her being six months into it…" He sighed. "I find there is nothing more charming than the glow of a happy mother. Tis God's greatest grace to give such kindness and joy."

"Yes, you're a very elegant poet Sir," Yugi murmured as a brief noise of chairs scrapping sounded within the chamber and she suspected the King's current engagement to be leaving.

"Ah, I was recollecting on poetry yesterday actually," Timaeus tried valiantly to draw the crux of Yugi's attention as she gazed off hawkish and expectant. He hardly seemed the kind of man for proper poetry being so grizzled with war wounds. "I wondered if you could help me with a local mater of translation?"

"Hmm?" Yugi made out that she didn't quite hear him but in actuality she hadn't been paying the slightest attention. The man was insistent but unfailingly polite.

"Given your apparent mastery of several European and local languages I thought you could best explain the meaning of the curiosity," he chuckled, "it's been a great wonder of mine what exactly_ Gem Faher_ means?"

There came the sound of men approaching the doors, she expected they'd soon be opened and Yugi would have her chance at last.

"Dear Lady?"

"Pardon?" Yugi had forgotten him again and Timaeus seemed to deflate. "Oh! That old thing your Excellency? It's baby story gargle, nonsense mostly adapted to official title as something of a joke by the last Sultan-"

Yugi was already keenly looking away as the doors opened and the Sultan came swaying out, patting hard at the backs of two of his lords from the greater council of men, with his bare chest flashing under a golden collar.

"Enjoy yourself!" Atemu laughed thwacking at the retreating shoulder before he appeared to notice Yugi. His smile had a way of evaporating around Yugi into something of nothingness and expectant concern. "You now too? Am I to hear baby news all morning? Tis not even here yet."

"Majesty," Yugi bowed with a lowering of the head and a dip of the knees more to curtsey than anything else. "A moment?"

The Sultan frowned, gently, and noticing Timaeus appeared to consider an escape.

"Do you have anything of urgency for me Ambassador?" He supposed almost hopefully with his hand on his sword.

"No. Not at all Sire, nothing so grim," the Ryssian murmured hoarsely. "Nothing worth keeping the Lady waiting for on my account certainly."

"A courteous man you are then Sir," Atemu sighed woefully realizing he was forced to take on the Gem Faher. Grunting, he beckoned to Yugi's keen, sharp, eyes. "In then woman and let's have how much more you lot want out of me for this nursery."

* * *

"I'm not here for anything so petty Sire," Yugi informed, traipsing briskly after him back into the office as the grand doors heaved behind them. She did not even think to bid the Ambassador a farewell. She was too occupied with her warpath. "Sesset sent the Exchequer our request for more funds and I assume that is all sorted."

"Tis, tis," Atemu heaved turning to her as he slouched one shoulder towards the grand windows with his hand still resting on his sword. He tended to fondle the weapon before Yugi. Sinister perhaps but Yugi preferred to consider sayings of deficient masculinity. "Then what did you come to badger me with?"

"Her Majesty's health concerns me greatly."

"She is taking the first babe hard, it's expected," Atemu grunted.

"She will not listen to me-"

"I would hope not!" He scoffed, laughing.

"-_Or_ her physicians," Yugi hissed both arms slapping to fold her forearms over each other. "She listens only to the nonsensical advice her sister in Britton sends in those letters. They have put notions in her head, of preserves and the benefits of as little exercise as possible, no wiser than anything I could beat out of sheep herder!"

"You will not disrespect the Queen's kin," Atemu warned, finger inclined.

"I should hope someone would for the sake of the child's health." Yugi snapped demurely. "Twill make the whole course of her pregnancy harder and the birth worse if we don't have her dissuaded to sense soon."

"I have sent for trained doctors from France," he snorted back, "they are great professionals. We shall see what they say."

"Oh they'll be all the worse with their cold footed notions about asparagus and milk!" She laughed nastily, frustrated. "You have the finest doctors in the world here."

"If the Lady wants such homely comforts I won't deny them from her," Atemu shot firm and very tall at once. "I won't be lectured on medicine from your either unless you can name for me some school you've attended aside from the front row of Hell!"

"Oh you damn petty rabblerouser you're as bad as they are!" Yugi bent to holler before throwing her hands up. "Have at it then! Let your mystic white men deliver the babe and have your wife sucking lemons! See how I shall keep my mouth shut!"

"So you ought to!" Atemu boomed.

"Good day then!" Yugi took her steps back, sweeping her hands open before scoffing, angrily, she turned to break off and escape in a flourish of impatience. "Enjoy yourself with your elixirs and potions!"

He gave the last caw angrily as the guards scrambled to let her out in an uncommon fluster and tugging the handles from them Yugi turned about the slam the doors after herself.

* * *

The Great Lesser Council did not like the Frenchmen and the Frenchmen did not at all like the savages as they saw them. The head man, with a long hawked nose and hair which didn't take well to all the hard sandy air, found their painted white Queen precious however.

The head Frenchman could spend a good hour or more sitting with the Queen at the window sill. She would pat her belly, her courtiers would sit about watching the man disapprovingly, and in whispers, pretending at playing cards, Mana'jet and Kisara would demand Yugi to translate. The Frenchman seemed to notice, at a brief moment when his eyes met Yugi's looking up through her lashes, and made a game of switching his conversation with her Majesty from English to French.

It proved useless; Yugi knew more than enough French to take notes of everything the head Frenchman said and to laugh at him behind her fan.

The Frenchmen were put up and paid handsomely. They were not welcome among the clerics or native physicians which was probably just as well given the French saw them as savage witch doctors. Likewise they were not suitable courtiers. They kept to themselves mostly, the three of them and the two white midwives.

Yugi suspected they hoped, if they served her Majesty well enough, that they would be permitted to stay to attend her other children in years to come making a good fortune for themselves. Kuli thought them a hive of ravenous blood suckers and Yugi taught her how to say as much in French (which luckily never got back to the Sultan).

Regardless the Frenchmen said ridiculous things about the dangers of riding at this stage of the pregnancy, the uselessness nutritionally speaking of uncooked food, and how the Queen very much ought to have the standard twelve week lying in properly shut up from the airs of the river.

Yugi's eyes rolled so far back they almost scampered out of her head.

Sensing her disapproval but inflexible in her ideals and unsure how to tend Yugi's dislike Anzu put a little silent bubble of space between them by effectively handing Yugi the keys to run court how she liked. Yugi did; they had adequate festivals and little plays and so on but she did it with no real zeal. Likewise Anzu took the opportunity to settle back her feet up with the growing babe and avoid any conversation with Yugio on the matter despite how she patted her belly every alternating syllable.

Tenuous as their current relationship sat Yugi was too generous and Anzu too kind for them to fall into bitter words. Yugi just wanted her to be safe.

The Sultan, unmistakably, quite liked the whole thing. Yugi with her lips wired shut, Anzu nice and settled, a score of stubborn European doctors preaching in the house, the court running without particular emphasis on the customs Atemu must've found unchristian…

Yugi wrote furious letters to Mahado and whispered just as much with the lesser council. They agreed, sided, with her but that was expected. Mahado wrote once to the Sultan about not taking one voice too highly above others and Atemu's eyes found Yugi across the breakfast table but the Gem Faher ignored him.

* * *

Timaeus had a way of, in no improper sense, seeking Yugi out when the woman was frantically busy with something.

The morning Yugi attempted and failed to dissuade her Majesty out of her ridiculous twelve week lying in the Ryssian exercised his peculiar talent.

"Morning your Grace!" Timaeus greeted striding towards the stables, slapping his leather glove against one still fitted on the other hand. "What is this great excitement I see?"

"We are out to ride this morning your Excellency," Yugi responded, still vengeful after the Lady Anzu had, in her very soft spoken way, turned down all her complaints as docile and stupid.

Those coming with her along the river, wives and husbands, tipped their hats to Timaeus who sent smiles to their little hums of genteel greeting but the Ryssian was otherwise occupied with Yugi who was rocking Mana'jet's daughter in her arms trying to urge the stable boy to saddle the horse at a brisker pace.

"I can feel the heat as well as you can," Yugi chided at the slave, bouncing the curled toddling child of two on her hip. "Makes men lazy, I know, but you can sleep in the empty hay all day when we are out."

"Milady," Timaeus had taken a step beside her. "Is there perhaps any chance I could dissuade you from your purpose?"

"Not this morning I fathom." Yugi answered offhand before she caught to bother asking; "though your Excellency why ever would you want to dear Sir?"

"I find myself with little to do today and I find your conversation always quite enlightening," Timaeus flattered tucking his cap.

"You'll find me very ill-tempered today," Yugi snorted absently, kissing the girl's forehead as she leant into her chest garbling for attention. "But if you have nothing better to divert you Milord you ought come riding with the men of our company. I am sure they'll find something worth hunting if only a crocodile."

"I did not know they hunted crocodiles here?" He wondered.

"Oh they'll hunt anything if it possesses a physical challenge." Yugi dismissed with a cocking shrug of one shoulder. She was quite displeased likewise with men this morning.

"This great country wonders me like a modern Sparta," Timaeus laughed.

"A _wh- _pardon?" She blinked. Yugi was educated on a great many practical things but deliriously, notoriously, unprepared in other senses. She knew only a little history and none of it stretching so far back. To her the word was nonsense.

"Sparta, the Greeks," Timaeus tried to enlighten Yugi's memory as if he fancied Yugi some well primed child of someone important rather than a vagabond.

"I confess I know nothing of the Greeks," Yugi sighed easily, "so you shall have to give me some tutoring on the matte- There boy! You are done and you can sleep away the hot midday!"

She was distracted by the lad who tightly lacing her horse now presented Yugi with a crop. Her second with the slave was more lightened than anything that had escaped her mouth a moment before. Timaeus appeared to notice but continued or attempted to before Yugi thrust the tiny, mumbling, baby girl towards him.

"Would you Milord?" Yugi half pleaded, taking the crop and passing the child to Timaeus.

"Ah! Yes!" Timaeus flustered hooking up the baby girl delicately though she squirmed utterly fat and displeased with the manner of being passed from one funny looking white individual to another.

Yugi hooked herself up into the saddle and reached to reclaim the child off the idling man trying to hold her.

"You will with us Milord?" Yugi supposed.

"No, I think not today," he apologised.

"Then I wish you a better day than I am having," Yugi sighed, "till this evening Milord."

"Hopefully I shall have chance then to tell you of the Greeks."

"I should enjoy it I'm sure," Yugi promised.

Timaeus had, sweet man though he was, a dry way of saying things. He spoke with passion but stripped the details of all their excitement. He was soldier not a story teller and Yugi, being of the blood of story tellers, sighed at it.

"A good day to you as well," Timaeus tipped his hat as Yugi nudged the horse into an amble.

* * *

Atemu had rather liked pregnancy in his youth. His kith and kin were so often bursting with child it seemed the normal state of things. They took to it all easily here, without fear or fussing. So great was the carelessness of mothers here that often times Atemu's bursting mother didn't even seem to realize she was expecting another hackney son soon to be clinging to her ankles.

Anzu had little hips Mana'jet fussed though and now he was Sultan a million other voices snapped, yammering, in his ears about this or that gold ornament for this mythical nursery and slow coming child. It was a tiring effort.

Over the course of her swelling, with something Atemu found it hard to contemplate was his child, Anzu got a little gaunter and lost a little of her lustre. He loved her all the same but it was a puzzling paradox to the sunnier memories of his childhood where the whole business of babies seemed easy enough.

She pressed his hand the bulge eventually, gasping and crying, to try and commune to him the fluttering feel of their offspring turning. He couldn't quite make it out but the idea made him smile briefly. It was a kind idea that there was some cognizance in something that would be his flesh and blood but…

The idea perplexed him and Atemu found himself briefly unsettled. It had always been easy to imagine whatever brother or sister was growing in his mothers, his father's wives, but he found it hard to picture his own child. He put it down to how gently the child inside Anzu seemed to push. Perhaps he was desensitized or perhaps a child with so much civilized, British, blood was gentler in disposition than a wild Eastern newborn.

How normally very mild Anzu could get so excited over the same affair likewise bothered him. It unsettled his steady seat of confidence. It was fearful and bothersome every time he found some little thing he hadn't been worried about had been panicking her. She had been terrified apparently that the child wouldn't begin to move and the fuss she made, sobbing, when it did quite startled Atemu…

He loved her, he was happy, he just… She made him feel like he had something to be frightened about. Childbirth had never been so dreadful a thing before.

He didn't want to go on about it but there also came an element of feeling cheated about the whole thing. Seth laughed at Atemu for it.

"She won't let you have her?" He cackled.

"She turned stark at the concept I so much as want to touch her," Atemu groaned, "she seems to think a brush at the bosom could startle the babe right out of existing."

"Ah but wives can be so feisty with heat when with child," Seth grinned filthily, "it's something about the occupation that sends them primal."

"Not my lass evidently," Atemu shrugged bitterly.

"Is it true the Frenchmen say she has to lock herself up for a month and so?" He leant in keenly with his gossip.

"For her health," Atemu sighed, "it's the most reputable science."

"Ha! Thank the gods you have the Gem Faher or the whole court would fall to chaos!" He laughed senseless or seemingly so of Atemu's hatred on the matter. "Tis a shame you don't have a second wife; then you'd not be lonely."

"But I don't," Atemu shrugged, that much didn't bother him but… "You know her Majesty suggested I actually find a mistress?"

"_No?"_ Seth wheezed stunned and delighted.

"In Britton it's quite common," he elaborated, "especially for Kings who must be the spirit of virility."

"Ha!" His brother chortled. "It's because they're so stingy and so few. Gods save and preserve me if I slept with another's wife! I'd be ousted and hanged for my troubles. Though if I did not have three of my own I could no doubt be hungry enough to try."

"Something to that effect," he yawned. "So with my morality I must sleep alone."

Seth, a typical younger brother, had no sympathy for him but a slew of snorts.

* * *

Yugi had a way of sitting that Atemu, though accustomed to, didn't often like. As they waited outside the Queen's darkened chambers however, watching the sheets ferried in and out by pasty foreigners and hearing the screams…

It was that first scream that during Atemu's approach had compelled him to seek out the normally distasteful seat by Yugi's left side along the shelf of the narrow, squatting, bench along the wall.

Yugi's fingers didn't move from their stagnated layers against each other in her lap but her eyes did drift to Atemu suspiciously and as the King folded his arms the witch's neck flexed. Yugi sighed through her nostrils and distracting himself from the constricted shrieks of his barred off wife Atemu regarded her.

For a nobody Yugi sat with the kind of poise, the composure, Atemu recalled his mother exhibiting. It was the kind of straight backed elegance that could comfort and embarrass a man equally depending on the weather. At one glance it could make the braver sex feel inferior, unworthy, but at another, like now when Atemu needed to baste in the outward glow of something stronger than himself, it comforted. To see someone else who seemed at least in control of themselves was reassuring.

The stance did nothing to melt the stark, hungry, grip about Yugi's mouth however. In a moment's pause, inclinations of thought running off with him to try and quieten the effect of the screaming still reaching Atemu's ears, he considered that was simply the bizarre quality of Yugi's face.

Atemu had originally expected more people of the continent to look like Yugi than he had actually found during his time there. The Gem Faher's face, well preserved and admittedly younger than Atemu's, lacked fresh milk-skinned youth, the dew of life appearance, women like Anzu possessed in gentle hands leaving a kind of portrait ancientness to the witch's face. Vexingly though, annoyingly, often enough as Atemu made up his mind that the poor thing was ugly Yugi would give a tantalizing, flushing and blooming, kind of smile that sparkling would fill her whole features.

He understood his father's weakness for such too-old for themselves faces but Atemu did not like how it affected him in that instance. When Anzu gave a shriek so groaning it almost cut an octave but fell down deep and dragging the pair of them cringed on the bench about their lips in much the same gesture of discomfort and disapproval. As his eyes fell shut, sighing, Atemu flexed his fingers on his arms and could've been compelled, for an instant, to slump his head in Yugi's lap and wait out the whole affair there. It disturbed him and while Atemu wouldn't have given some inclination to kiss a fair girl a second thought he gave everyone uncalled for thought of Yugi credence.

In her chambers Anzu seemed agonized, muffled sobs ringing out between contractions, and Yugi's lips pursed in a way Atemu took a note of unease from.

Birth was a dreadfully consuming thing.

"Should it be this wretched?" Atemu asked hoarsely.

"No." Yugi did not spare him any gentle pandering with the worried curtness of her answer.

The sitting rooms in the Queen's chambers, in fact the whole of her chambers, were stuffy with closed shutters and stagnant darkness compounded into sweat from the natural heat of their continent.

Atemu frowned, glancing across his shoulder towards the sealed door.

"Where are the others?"

"In the grand hall seeing they are not invited to the birth," Yugi answered.

"They'll get chance enough to fondle the child."

"It's not the fondling they care about," Yugi grunted, "it's the helping. Yet she is without help."

"She has the best doctors money can afford."

"Money does not afford happiness or family," the Gem Faher shot back in that scathingly clever way of hers. "It shouldn't be like this; she should have light, the whole family holding her, strengthening her bonds with and well protected by her subjects. She should have drink and smoke and chews to lessen the pain. She shouldn't be running in dry and unwell. She should be _safe_, not scared."

Atemu sighed. Births were not a thing men were allowed to but husbands and brothers oft sat in the outside sitting rooms drawn by the sheer festivity of the women coming and going. There was none of that here and, despite his attempts not to, Atemu missed it.

"They won't let her eat," Yugi murmured fretting, "I can feel her getting weaker."

"_Oh?_" Atemu stiffened nastily, eyes darting.

It was the wrong thing to say and glazed as they both had been Yugi didn't seem to realize Atemu had been listening.

"Yes," she answered hoarsely because there was no backing out of the words now, "she sounds… don't you hear it?"

"Are you trying to frighten me?" Atemu grunted. He thought for a second he almost had the witch into a corner worth exploiting a confession out of.

Yugi sighed but didn't ruin her posture as if to say Atemu couldn't make her do anything or think anything except exactly what she wanted to.

"It's impossible to frighten you Majesty, I've given up that hobby," Yugi laughed dryly. "Given you always assume the worst of me there's no possible way to startle you with a fresh atrocity."

Atemu scoffed with a kind of empty, de-facto, amusement.

"I'll give you this much witch; you're witty."

Yugi seemed to have something very sharp to say but, chuckling, suppressed it to let her hair hang about her face and yawn into the back of her palm. They allowed each other, just for now, to be quiet without another row.

* * *

They sat there on the bench, just a foot between them, in the magic shadowed circle of the candlelight before the slaves lit the fire in the sandstone hearth. The guards at the closed door looking into the sitting room stared mostly at the ceiling above their heads but Yugi and Atemu had experience enough to spot the tiny flickers in the guards notice as one squat old slave brought them a tray of treats and a pitcher to wait out the night.

The tray and the pitcher was placed between them by Atemu, the slave dismissed, and Yugi poured herself a drink without offering a chance for the gentleman to take the lead. They both of them, Atemu supposed, had a kind of stubborn independence.

Atemu furnished himself a drink, tipping it back deep, just as Yugi gathered up a slice of cold meat and pickled chutney between a hunk of wrapped flat bread. As much as he disliked the Gem Faher, loathed really, the whole act of hating had been blunted by their being forced to co-exist with the Queen. The witch's evident usefulness and refusal to rise to Atemu's snapping had made maintaining the intensity of repulsion difficult. In effect the creature had become a toad that Atemu had developed a thicker skin to the existence of. It would always rain eventually and in that same way it seemed Atemu had to endure the other.

The screaming came still at intervals but by then it had quite been broken down by exhaustion. The sound quite startled them when next it hit, uncomfortably jarring to the atmosphere, and sighing Atemu was not pleased.

"How long can all this take?" He grumbled.

"A day or two sometimes," Yugi warned vaguely though she seemed unconcerned by that fact. "If it lasts any longer I'll be off to bed."

"Not up all night with devotion?" Atemu almost made an insult.

"If I was in with her I would not sleep a wink but as I am not I see no reason not to," was the solemn, unamused, response as if this whole thing were the Sultan's fault.

Grunting, Atemu kicked off his shoes and watching him covertly Yugi seemed to consider likewise but nibbled instead.

A Frenchman came tumbling out before Atemu could slap the witch's arm and demand with hierarchical power that the pale woman match him barefoot for barefoot in mutual impropriety.

"Hm?" Atemu cocked his chin as the hobbling white man clucked up to him, bowing, attempting their tongue. "Oh stop it you cad; I speak English perfectly as well as the next man. Out with it then, what's the news?"

Yugi nibbled still, licking her teeth without even attempting to prop herself up properly before the foreigner.

"Her Majesty is almost through with it," he wheezed, dabbing the sweat from his brow, "but she is weak and the babe comes the wrong way Majesty. You may have to prepare yourself for the worst if we cannot get it out quick."

"Should've fed her," Yugi hissed ruefully under her breath, licking one finger nastily all her gypsy blood highlighted in the glow of the light.

"Well get back in there damn it man and help her!" Atemu snapped, hand cutting the air harsh gesticulation. "Off with you! Do it!"

"Y-yes Sire!" The gaunt man stuttered running as if he feared Atemu might turn savage and severe his head.

"Incompetence," Yugi mumbled, taking her drink for a swift drinker's swig as if she needed it to steady her tense hand.

"Oh hush," Atemu hissed, gut too tight for comfort as their air seemed to crystallize in mutual concern. "You are not helping either."

"I would be if you let me." The Gem Faher retorted vehemently and though it occurred to Atemu she might care honestly for the Queen he pushed it aside needing something to latch at in his own fear.

"I would not have you near any child of mine."

"I know," Yugi grunted and then to herself; "and _thank God _I shall never have to bear any of them."

"Heaven shudders at the thought," Atemu spat. It was a disgusting notion it seemed to both of them given how Yugi cringed, drawing up her top lip as he spoke the concept.

* * *

**Next Time**: a kind of spell compels Yugi and Atemu to abruptly join forces but when it passes Atemu has, at last, his metaphorical match.


	9. Matches

Hey everybody~ nothing exciting to report!

* * *

**Chapter 9: Matches**

A crisp, squelching, cry rattled thinly from the room within dragging, jerking, both of them from their stupor.

Abruptly they were not enemies.

Abruptly they were both pale and tense. Yugi fussed with her hair and held her breath as if they'd dived under the surface of the river. Atemu's hands sat raised but idle no longer on his sword or on his lap as they so often found their homes.

The cry squealed within a second time like a bugle horn.

A band of tension released its spell over them.

Yugi mumbled, hand cuffing her lips, as she shook her head and seemed to tear up.

"What? What on earth is that for?" Atemu hissed, demanding, immediately startled as he yanked at the woman's vulnerable wrist trying to hear her whisper under the cawing baby-bird shriek.

"No-nothing! Nothing," Yugi startled then soothed, brushing herself especially about the glassing eyes, batting Atemu back gently. "Hush, it's alright, it's just my ramble. I've been worried about the damn tiny creature."

"What else?" Atemu demanded, childish now in a way. "Is that cacophony a good sound?"

"Crying's good," Yugi nodded, wiping her eye properly as Atemu left her alone. She sniffed. "It sounds like a girl with that pitch."

"Anything will do." He announced, hands taking to grasping the edge of the bench as he cocked his head back towards the room, waiting impatiently. Atemu's insides began to fill, gushing, at the tiny distressed sounds with something new and sharply, bitterly, cold. It was a tenuous moment before he connected the anxiety of it to any kind of love. An all consuming love for something he couldn't even see…

He pressed his lips together.

There was a chaos within, more fussing, more crying. A stumble came over something wooden, a piece of the luxurious furniture clattered, Anzu gave a horrid sound and the Frenchmen seemed to be arguing. Yet the crying of the babe had not stopped.

One of the physicians came clapping over the tiles in his boots, trying to look tall and trim and very clean despite the hours spent sweating in the unaccustomed heat of the chamber which had utterly devastated the crevices of his aging face.

Yugi stood, hands clumsily back over her mouth, struck by something and Atemu was rather instantly on his feet in the same panic beckoning the silly top-heavy man closer.

Taking careful, chubby, steps the old European came near enough to offer the primped stack of stiff linen to the Sultan.

There was a snatch, a re-arrangement, and grabbing his shoulder Yugi came about Atemu's side attempting to assist in the rushed transition by cradling the tiny covered head and neck with her hand and a hushing pair of lips. Atemu let her help, working the bundle into the grove of his cradling elbow and darting round to his opposite side Yugi craned up onto her toes to look down into the tiny face Atemu tried to un-obscure by pulling aside the linen.

Yugi gasped, bit her nail stupidly, gave a little sound and rushed with something Atemu's shoulders scrunched before losing all their tension. He leant a little more into the direction of the witch, amazed, trying to better the picture of the tiny, almost white, child. Yugi dropped from her tiptoes, laughing through a broken swoon of relief, hands still on Atemu as the tilt of the King's arms round the bundle won them both a good look.

"Tis a boy we believe your Highness," simpered the Frenchman.

"Yes, yes," Atemu grunted tartly. He didn't like the self-satisfied sound of the man; it distracted from the portrait of the perfect little face.

"Oh he's tiny," Yugi fluttered, vaguely adoring but lingeringly cautious as her fingertips moved across Atemu's cradling forearm too hesitant to touch the child with the father present.

"Should he be quite so small?" Atemu whispered, stunned.

"Well Sir-"

"_Shh,_" Atemu snapped curtly at the European.

"N-no, not so much," Yugi picked up the answer to the question which Atemu had quite mindlessly directed to her. The witch's hand ran down Atemu's forearm using it as a poor substitute for how she wanted to touch the boy the king was coveting. It was anxious but only just so.

"Then what's to be done?" Atemu pried.

"Feed him, get him fatter," Yugi nodded decisively. "The climate's good here. Gods help he won't be sickly and we'll make it past the worst."

"Good, good," he mumbled, smiling almost.

The withered, tutting, Frenchman hummed evidently not quite agreeing.

"Ah, Sire," he started gently just inclining his finger.

"_What?_"

Against him Yugi's warm weight and keen eyes still fussed on the child like a wife utterly ignoring the men's business to leave it to Atemu to clean up. Atemu could feel her face below his chin arching over the babe, feel her little hand on his wanting to pet the child but unwilling to without his permission despite how she seemed to burst with longing to.

"Her Majesty is still, I fear, in rather dire straits." He cautioned. "There was some bleeding getting him out but all will be well. It should cease."

"Scoot then," Atemu grunted eyes burning, "to her. Fix it. If anything happens to my wife it'll be your head."

"Ah, but, the child Sire ought, uh-"

"Oh _shh_ and leave him here," Yugi snapped cocking her jaw. "Tis one babe, I've seen droves of them, off with you. Do something useful."

Atemu snorted, pleased, as almost insulted the man scampered like a tipsy top back to the frantic bedchamber where men and midwives were still gasping tumultuously. It was strange how the tiny thing made them so vicious towards the same direction. As the shadow of the man disappeared Yugi let escape another, tiny, brokenly happy sound of relief.

* * *

A boy was, quite simply put, exactly what the kings of the past four centuries had all sat up in the night waiting for. Since time began its heavy progress truly it seemed that all men lusted for sons. Sons fixed things, propped the whole course of a country up and the ecstatic burst that exploded through the palace at just past midnight seemed testament to as much.

It may have, if handled delicately, been enough to seal Yugi and Atemu into a better alliance.

As the doctors slaved, for what seemed too long over the Queen, barring the doors Yugi and Mana'jet made off with the newborn and an Eastern nursemaid into a sealed office of the King's. Left with himself Atemu was given the business of confronting all his exuberantly excited, half drunk and half asleep, brothers who had been celebrating since the announcement of the labour twelve hours before.

It didn't even occur to Atemu that two very casual, very trusting, friends of the witch were now the sole protectors of his son who had vanished in the Gem Faher's arms being kissed. It… truthfully in the consummation of that splendid rush of pleasure, the sizzle of being a father, Atemu forgot all about detesting Yugi.

By dawn Atemu had had sparse sleep.

Timaeus pouring him a drink gave assurances of the Tsar's congratulations and the grin cutting Atemu's face could not seem to be quelled. He was settled in the fact this righteous motion of life had validated suddenly his marrying the Lady Anzu, he felt, in the the eyes of everyone. Even Atemu's father, surely, would've been appeased when presented with a timely grandson.

Yugi was the first however in the grey dawn light to push a very sharp needle into Atemu's side.

"Majesty," she came ducking in to clasp herself up beside the Sultan's seat utterly unable to notice the Ryssian ambassador. Yugi ducked at the knees, leaning over the arm of his chair to whisper as Atemu beckoned lazily. "He's gone quiet. He won't suckle."

"Won't…?" Atemu couldn't… everything eats. Everything. Everything with filled with the rush of sun and will of life and…

Yugi shook her head, tired in every detail of her face, whispering against his shoulder as if they were cohorts in pleasure and suffering.

"We got him to take a little in the last hour but he's brought it all up again."

"Stay with him," Atemu ordered though he shouldn't have wanted Yugi to do it, "he might take better to his mother when they release her." As Atemu was sure they would.

Yugi nodded keenly, responsive and obedient.

"Might I call the other wives?" She murmured. "Mana and I are failing in the eyes. The body wants to sleep even if the head does not I fear."

"Get them up, have them all," Atemu urged. "Send a dozen guards and if you will try another nursemaid."

"Yes Sire."

A prickle, a sensation, of lingering disbelief, panic, and unnerve plucked in every second heartbeat of Atemu's as Yugi took a quick step to sashay out into the hall pattering without so much as a glance to Timaeus.

* * *

Yugi took to rubbing the side of her hand against her lips, followed by the tips of her fingers, grasping her knee in one hand. They passed the boy round. He slept best against one of them, against a warm chest and in warm arms, and at three days old seemed to have a whole harem already. Yugi didn't like to watch him go round like a parcel because with the child in her hands she felt she could at least manage some brief something.

The Queen had, Yugi heard in whispers, stopped bleeding from a tear that it appeared was rather great. Still in the past two days, exhausted and weak, she hadn't risen from bed.

On the third morning she had a fever, all red and hot in the face. The salivating Frenchmen became frantic as Atemu's ever illustrious temper began to tumble into desperation.

On the fourth morning Anzu had become unable to eat.

In a fury Atemu had dismissed the Frenchmen and every hour the gossip of the whole palace seemed to change. In twelve hours it seemed the whole course of their joy had flipped for a bitter, gut wrenching, drop into fear.

The wives sent slaves round, guards, girls… trying to get news as they passed the boy who, still so small, had begun to breathe fast and had only drunk and kept down a little in his short life.

In the next hour it seemed Atemu had tried to send the temple clerics to tend Anzu but the Queen had sent them away.

In the next the clerics were attempting to consult up some course of action without seeing her Majesty and the Frenchmen had to be caught and dragged back from the docks to testify in detail about her condition.

In the-

Mana gave a gasp that, breaking high, extended itself in horror to a moan and a screech utterly agonized.

From the window Yugi stumbled up and she'd hardly reached her, demanding what was the matter, before a clamour of other voices were up alongside her.

"He's stopped!" Mana shrieked, eyes sunken and cheeks taunt tyring to open the still babe's mouth to see if its throat was blocked. "He's not breathing!"

"Here! Here!" Kisara demanded grasping for the child. She took it, she patted, she rocked, she hissed… "Come on now sweet one, come now, breath little one, _breathe_…"

They stood, a dozen of them tremulous, two of them already crying, Mana'jet hyperventilating into her hands.

He'd stopped.

At four days, unnamed in the chaos, the tiny, tiny, thing faded out of their reach without ever seeing his mother.

Without ever being named.

* * *

There was no telling the Queen. They feared the fact of the matter would annihilate her into hysterics that might turn her stuttering state all the more dire.

On the fifth day she'd had no solid food and fluids had begun to fail. Yugi knew from all she'd ever seen and attended that if the bowel movements gave way to slush then the wound from the birth could all the more easily be infected. Child bed fever was the next likely outcome and without anything in her there'd be no strength to make her better. The physicians however unable, at her orders, to see the state of her wound could not tend it or take guesses off it.

Yugi squeezed her hands between her knees, praying still in the great temple where she'd kept herself unable to sleep all night. She bit her lip, dragged her teeth over the chapped bottom of the set, and hunching her shoulders inhaled stoutly.

Anzu's damn inflexible British prudishness would be her undoing.

Head down Yugi took, in gusts, to chanting between alternating strings of her mother's incantations and Eastern prayers.

* * *

On the sixth day Atemu's resolve broke.

"I don't care what you do," he dragged Yugi by the elbow, his entire form ablaze. "I don't care how you do it. I don't care if you dance naked to Satan himself and consummate a contract with him at the foot of her bed. Just _fix it._"

Yugi was shoved, tumbled into the darkness of the Queen's rooms and glancing back saw Atemu with his hands out maddened from sleeplessness and intent on driving her forward if necessary. Desperation, appealing desperation, was burning in the Sultan and nipped by that Yugi didn't dare turnabout. Her mother always said to move on before men became desperate; their standards raised, their greed at its most intense, their condition most volatile but Anzu…

"Oh Anzu…"

She shook her head, another step fell out of her, and forgetting all else Yugi could not remember the hard learnt etiquette of court impressed upon her during her seven years here.

The sight of her, oh heaven the sight of…

She shook her head, couldn't…she…

Anzu lay, not quite conscious in the almost darkness of the shut up room, panting in the candlelight nearest the bed that ringed the room with tomb light. Her chest heaved and the nightgown that clung to her was so drenched with sweat she seemed to have dragged herself dying from the river. It gave her the appearance of drowning. The intense appearance of drowning… old stories of lakes, sighing women, the mermaid queen of France, the…

Collapsing onto the edge of the bed Yugi swooned with horror.

Oh God…

As she leant over every bone in Anzu's clavicle was pronounce, the precise arch of her collar and cheek bone crystal clear, and as she tossed her head Yugi could spy a throbbing vein arching down her neck.

Dying, dying…

She shook her head.

Anzu's hand was burning, her cheek was ablaze, as if Yugi had stuck her hands between two logs on the hearth and everywhere there was sweat, draining, drenching, sweat.

The longer she sat too the clearer the smell became. Anzu was loved, she'd been cleaned, she'd been damped down and dried but the putrid, fungal, smell of rot was neigh inescapable underneath it all. Under all the powder Yugi could taste the pits and the flies and the smell of death.

Infection.

The wound was infected. Anzu was rotting alive. Yugi knew, sensed it, as clear as she could see the light about her face or feel Anzu's fingernails in between her clutching fingers.

Yugi raised the back of her hand, kissed it, poor sweet woman and… _Oh God!_

Yugi caught the breath choking through her throat, her head falling towards her chest as it shook stubbornly. Anzu panted.

Dying. She was dying like a common urchin of the continent even a sea away and Queen of the East. Dying from church pew ideas and nonsense and holier than thou men with their potions and leeches and…

_Oh God forgive me_

Dying of Yugi's meddling, Yugi's spells.

Dying of Frenchmen who approved of so little of their Eastern cuisine, dying of laziness and lack of sun, dying of lack of endurance and strength, dying of blood loss, dying of infection…

Yugi gasped, inhaled, shuddering herself together and frantic cupped Anzu's face toward her delicately.

"Anzu, Milady," she urged, "sweetheart wake up. I beg you."

She groaned, she sighed, and trying to heave her heavy head closer glassy, swimming, eyes blinked sloppily. Anzu gaze seemed to see right through her towards the very edge of life.

"Milady I need to look at you," Yugi urged. "Friend, you're dying. I have to help you."

_"Hnn_," she moaned, "_no_…"

Whether it was to Yuig or a dream Yugi was not sure either of them knew.

"Please sweetheart," she begged tentatively because as the syllables passed she hardly knew if it would do either of them any good at this point. "Think of your son."

"_My son_…" She cried under her breath. Her eyes, swinging about lost, eventually found Yugi as she gasped. "You'll see he's well won't you? You're supposed to do all the things I'm too silly for."

"No, no," she promised, "you're not silly. You are a mother now."

Mother to a dead boy, indeed, but Yugi couldn't bear to tell her that. If she had to go to her heaven then she ought to think Atemu was well and she had given him something to make due with.

"I am," she laughed, "I'm silly. They all think so. They all think you should have him. They all think I'm a girl and a fool and that I've stolen something from you but, oh, I didn't mean to… but I love him and…"

She rambled, forgot herself, dazing off only really half present.

"Let me…" Yugi cut it, stopped herself because gathering up her breath she could go no further.

No.

It wouldn't help.

Nothing now would help. Anzu's belief, her pride and her urge for comfort had settled her here and distressing those ideals now… all the meddling Yugi might manage would do nothing to save Anzu only strip her of one last, desperate, shred of honour. To embarrass her now, to horrify and destabilize her was to be truly wicked.

Yugi couldn't do it.

She was lost.

"I will send his Majesty in," Yugi promised, kissing her brow. "Sleep well Sire."

Anzu muffled, eyes fluttering, gone back to the depths of the fever.

* * *

Yugi was still sitting in the window seat when Atemu came out again. Both of them had been crying. Both of them were dry now though redness puffed round his sharp eyes still and dry tracks crackled still on Yugi's cheeks.

"I am so sorry," Yugi whispered, laid up like a set aside mannequin in the corner of the stone shelf. "It's too late for anything."

Atemu pursed his lips, swallowing.

His eyes found the floor, scampering the tiles with a horrible lost quality, before his gaze rose again to twist upon Yugi in the corner yanked there as if tugged.

He swallowed and taking up the first, fiery, breath for so many moments seemed to inflate and reinvigorate. Yugi blinked at him, still watery, and saw for the first time in a year or so the sharpened edge of real _hatred_.

Atemu took short steps, strong strides, and in what seemed all at once he was wrenching Yugi up by the pale lankness of her upper arm hooking his thumb into the skin hard. Yugi gasped and growling Atemu tossed her down onto the bare ground so she hit the tiles in a hard clattering of sparse jewellery and thumping limbs.

Yugi made a noise, hurting, her arm pulsing where the bruise would be and a step above her leaning down, as Yugi twisted onto her side to look up, Atemu breathed so deep he seemed a dragon. It was as if little puffs of smoke would come out his flared nostril.

"You have given me a wet match."

* * *

There were two, very grand, funeral processions. They had different rites, different colours, but the same very tangible kind of cold about them. The prince they buried in the Valley with the Kings with his kin. The Lady they buried at a temple during the day with secret Christian rites in the night when everyone but the King had left.

The death of a boy, especially a boy, was something worth sobbing over to the great and small of the East. They were of the belief that emotion ought to be expressed and great men deserved great emotion so there was never any elegant attempt to protect their make-up and tribal paint from gushing, unattractive, tears. Yugi however could not quite sob the way she had for Qazzadara, her dearest friend, while following Anzu's pyre. Her throat thick, her shoulders set and her eyes straight ahead the tears came but the sound did not. Fear turns, wheels, grief into hysterics and she feared if she started to cry she would not stop.

The Lesser Council _sobbed_. Death in childbirth was something of an honour to them, a true bravery, a sacrifice to god and clan. Yet underneath that slim level of tradition was the esteemed truth that to them a woman's will to stand their ground was their greatest virtue. In her refusal to take all the help that had been thrust upon her, Anzu, having only until now been their mild, distant, friend had endeared herself irrevocably and uselessly to the wives. She could've died of any fever and they would've, very softly, missed her resilient presence but the last stubborn acts of an unyielding woman had transformed her memory into that of a worthy Queen.

Yugi took back the stiff, straight, blacks and greys of mourning and with a graveyard sigh the Great Lesser Council was all under her command again. As it had been during Qazzadara's reign, as it had been during Anzu's, as it would be until Atemu killed… burned…

* * *

The world seemed to go quiet after the burials and the fires. Revelry died off and feasting became, in Yugi's opinion, a secondary priority so long as Atemu took such long meetings and seemed still so tense.

Yugi was not the kind of traveller to throw off the threats of any man let alone a king.

Yugi was also not as poor and helpless to the whims of men as her mother had been however.

Court knew her, court loved her and with every second she had she would play it to her advantage. If Atemu thought she would vanish so easily, be quietly dragged up to the stake and fire which had been the natural resting place for half of Yugi's ancestors, then the King was mad.

In a war council of five or less ladies she split up the duties for the next fortnight and the next day among Mana'jet, Kisara, Sesset and Lurek. She gave them cards from the standard deck of fifty-two highlighting the manner of what she expected and making things simpler.

The exact specifics of the motions and the conversation were difficult to transcribe even in hindsight because of the complexity of the act of running the palace and tension of the situation. While they, Yugi's associates, did not seem to think the worst- _a witch trial_- could happen they were aware enough and respectful enough of the possibility to proceed with all the caution she ordered.

If anyone came looking for Yugi, any men of the King and especially at any unordinary hour, the four ladies were always to be apart and they were always to say she was with one of the others. Lurek was to say Yugi was with Mana, Mana to say she was with Kisara, Kisara with Sesset, and Sesset with Lurek. It was a ring.

With them occupied running the house Yugi had time enough in her rooms for three processes in the hours immediately following the funerals;

Firstly she had amassed a stupendous fortune from Qazzadara's pension and payments. Ten gold pieces were promised to a group of fifty slaves Yugi called up in batches through the servant's passage. They were, in very subtle ways, to tell her where the King was, what his motions were, where the big men of court were going and if, if ever, men in any number were approaching Yugi or her rooms.

One of older slaves (spry, ambitious but a flagrant supporter of misandry) was recruited to draw up for Yugi a detailed map of the servants passages and the channels under the walls whether they be for sewerage or allowing river water in to the shallow lakes.

The last thing Yugi managed, as the moon started to rise, was to find her old friend the guard through the endless passages.

She found him finally, feet aching, in a secluded corner under the veranda of the temple along the back wall.

"Sir," Yugi whispered.

His head did not turn, spear in hand, but those dark eyes swivelled in the stone maw of that impassive face toward her. Yugi ducked down to a bow.

"Sir I don't know you but you were very kind once," she began, "might I ask you a favour I can ask of no other?"

* * *

Yugi was on the other side of the palace, in the empty grand hall with Lurek, a few days later when a barefooted slave came running to yank excitedly at her elbow.

Yugi lay down her cards on the table, leant, and arching up the child bubbled into her ear: "His Majesty has sent men!" The boy bounced. "They're going to search Miss's rooms!"

"Hmm," Yugi snorted, sitting back tall to brush the child's face with her hand and squeeze the boy's nose. "Wonderful. Thank you darling."

Nodding curtly, clumsy and ruffled with a child's confusion, the slave pattered off at a frenzied pace evidently quite intrigued by the idea of making it back in time to spy on the proceedings as well.

"Should I be concerned for you?" Lurek supposed congenially. The issue of Yugi's soul and whether or not it was as black as Atemu suspected was not something that concerned the wives. It was not something they discussed because, witch or not, Yugi was theirs.

"No," Yugi smiled, "there is nothing for them to find."

_Not anymore_.

"I am very glad not to be your enemy," Lurek smiled. She was a mature woman, grim and stern but after so many years she knew to pick fair odds over certain moralities.

"I would rather not be anyone's enemy," Yugi shrugged. "We shall see if we can't dissuade his Majesty from as much."

It was not that today Yugi's mourning agony had faded from its dull, aching, thrum inside. It was not that the ache would ever fade. That pain had nothing to do with Yugi's ability still to smile. It was simply that courtiers always had to smile.

The world would not wait, not for her, and as it rushed on Yugi's cunning had to train itself to click and clunk along steadily despite the wails of her own heart. After her tutelage dragged lopsided across the countryside she knew well enough the first lesson that: if one survives today then they can cry tomorrow when the wolves are gone and the sun above is warmer. When Atemu was done with his fury, with his witch hunt, then Yugi could scream into her hands and moan at the moon. Yugi trusted the depths of her guilt and her pain as deep enough to last until the Sultan, like all men, became bored.

* * *

The search resolved nothing given it found nothing of any value.

Yugi's chests were turned upside down, the bed flipped, all her clothes dragged out and her needles disturbed. Her books were riffled through, her jewellery checked for contents and anything Yugi had suspected Atemu might wish to reclaim she had taken to wearing on her person at all times. Still after four very exhaustive hours, in which Yugi contented herself with lunch by the river, utterly unconcerned, and Atemu no doubt paced feeling mocked, there was not a dead mouse or a scrape of dust or anything any greater that might be questionable.

Smug, though her lips never twitched upwards, Yugi returned to find the servants cleaning her ruffled rolls of fabric and remaking her bed as if nothing at all had happened.

It was a minor but critical victory.

Yugi had to outpace, stay abreast, of the King however because endurance was more imbued in the men here than in any other species of the same sex across the continent.

One slave whispered to Yugi that the King was seeing a temple priest frequently during the night.

Another slave told Yugi a fortnight later, as Yugi continued to order the wives, carefully prep a few mild festivities and finalize the month's accounts, that Atemu had counselled with the ambassadors.

Nose down, ears perked, Yugi would have to wait the storm out.

Atemu was not off the scent yet…

* * *

1 Why yes 'match' was a pun.  
2 So both Anzu and the baby are gone… not unexpected given we all seemed sure someone was going to die but, being horrid, I took both.  
3 Yugi and Atemu were getting along so well up until Atemu decided to launch a witch hunt! Damn.  
4 What on earth did Yugi have her friend the guard hide?

**Next Time**: Atemu's search for evidence to use against Yugi intensifies and, after another prophecy, it appears he might have something. Should Yugi flee…?


	10. Witch Hunt

Hey kids might not be a chapter next week depending on my exam schedule.

* * *

**Chapter 10: Witch Hunt**

A month from the funerals Atemu finally called up the old servants of Qazzadara's house for private interviews. Interrogations doubtlessly of older staff in the hopes that Yugi had no power to bribe their mouths shut.

Yugi had some trouble deciding if any of Atem's new voices posed a threat after scanning her memory with the descriptions her tiny spies brought her of them. She remembered only half of them with any certainty and of them she could not think, so far along, if they had ever seen anything which may have been of inferior importance to her but suspicious to them.

The fact she could not remember concerned her.

She tightened things, made sure she was very always with someone so as not to be seen sneaking about.

* * *

Two months on some of the fire had died but Atemu only seemed embittered. His haggard, uncomfortable, face was no more contented than it had been the night before the Queen's death and watching him covertly Yugi suspected that the worst of it might be passed. Like a first born of Egypt Yugi supposed she might've payed enough blood this time to be overlooked by the raging tempest of a vengeful god.

Had the King lost…?

Surely he hadn't found anything.

Yugi was sure, almost sure, as the palace accounts were inspected thoroughly and audited for discrepancies. Apparently a designer, a dress maker, Yugi bought the majority of her goods from had been asked to give records to the crown of her purchases. The kitchens had been scrutinized, her goldsmiths questioned…

Yugi did not think that there was anywhere left the King could look.

Had she forgotten something?

No.

No, surely not…

* * *

"He ought to get married again," the child, a long faced girl, remarked casually as they strolled.

"I'm surprised actually that the Great Lesser Council hasn't been summoned up to hassle him on the matter," Yugi shrugged mid stride.

The garden was beginning to dry and become brittle. It was at its most fragile, an array of golden hues, sinking towards the soil of the courtyard under the thickening heat. The monsoon season would hit them soon; overfill the rivers, drown everything, turn the crop fields into swamps and drown the gargling forests up and down the stretch of the central river.

She was weighing a flower sagging towards the greying grass, testing its resilience, hungry and observant lately for a chance to use some of her natural prowess. She wanted to direct herself to the very pursuits Atemu intended to burn her for.

It was dangerous the kind of longing Yugi felt to ply her native trade. It was unstoppable. She had, every season since before she was born, put herself to use those skills her mother had taught since the womb and was ever improving her talents. It was an erotic brand of wantonness she felt after the last two months of secrecy had rendered it too dangerous for Yugi to make a chant or draw a circle or consult a dream. Life seemed simpler when she could resort to her tried and tested methods of resolution with stolen bits of hair and whispers.

Had Yugi been able to put down the knife, the branch, the book, the song… everything that Atemu sensed in her and so detested. She considered without the craft she might've been happier or safer even. Yet Yugi never could truly let go and neither could her kin. Relatives of her's had boiled their skin down to ash before scathing crowds for the charge of witchcraft but still the clan carried on idling by. It just_ was_. Every year it rained, sky too heavy to hold itself off, because it was too natural an urge to be ignored. In the same way Yugi couldn't abandon her sins. It would always rain and there would always be witches.

* * *

Yugi moaned, stirred violently in the night.

The sheets rumpled back from her the air twisting with that cold, clean, beach scent she built up round her to mask the darker odours. As she lurched the sheets were leaves, fallen and all around rustling, the distant aroma of her perfumes was blood congealing on the air and the room was dark as the woods of Deutschland and-

There was a scrape in the hall, a guard wandering down the passage, but startling, caught still half in a nightmare, Yugi heard the guttural growl of a wolf.

Panting she clasped the sheets, eyes wild.

Her mind rushed over like a wave crashing the surface of consciousness. She'd had such a dream… such a dream the likes of which….

A book sat forgotten on her bedside. She grasped for it clumsily and smacking the bound covers shut flicked the pages open again in her fingers.

She dragged her eyes down upon the first line and the first page that hooked her focus:

"_-and the fire rose towards the sky, smoke blotting the sun, and all in the city wept moaning_-"

Yugi snapped it shut.

Her heart gave a stutter and, arms prickling in the cold air, she slid herself from the bed fishing for her slipped blankets. Muttering bout bad omens and poor skies she went to find the window from which, at this point of the night, she could best spy the moon.

She leant against the glass, opened the panels to lean out over the sandstone sill, and heart thumping queasily cocked her head about.

No moon.

_No moon?  
_  
She calculated over the cycle and concluded it must be the night of the new moon.

She swore.

Fishing across her tables Yugi found the pendant once belonging to Qazzadara's primary wife which Mahado had gifted her. She looped the chain round her neck twice before clasping it to make an almost noosed collar. She found her clothes, pushing up the lid of the nearest chest and tossing them on the bed, found water to wipe herself down and brushes and shoes though it couldn't have been more than four in the morning.

She dressed, she stuffed the brass baby spoon in her pocket, she wiped her face unable to best apply any kohl in such complete darkness and slumping in the seat nearest the dead fire curled up her legs.

The inertia lasted only seconds before she was driven to rise again, mad with the sense of some impending doom, fearing that thing which all her kin feared: _fire_.

She dug in her trunks and finding the oldest of her garments stripped and dressed again. The clothes had once been a gorgeous affair when Qazzadara had gifted the initial roll of fabric to fashion Yugi into something presentable for court but now time had faded the flowery embroidery the plum-blue ground to mellow half tones.

Yugi wrapped it on, found the plain leather slippers she wore riding and digging beneath the bed found the bag, the old bag, which had once contained all her known possessions in the wide world.

The best of what Yugi owned now was hidden.

The bag, regardless, she stuffed with those precautions of hers.

* * *

She sat till dawn when the servant came to wake her and found her fingers quivering against her lips gently as she sat still beside the fireplace. The servant stirred her effectively from her torpor, rousing her in such a way Yugi rather frightened the woman.

She licked her protruding bottom lip, half asleep sent the maid off, and applying the kohl finally in the diffused morning light could smell fresh water round her somewhere though the room was dry as bone.

When the sun turned from ivory to blistering gold she turned down the communal baths and took breakfast in her room and at her desk rested her temples into her palms unable to be distracted.

She picked up the book again but turning it over could not find that passage she had read but an hour or three ago.

Swallowing, heaving, Yugi drank a pitcher of water in the next hour she sat alone. Everything felt too hot, everything itched, ghost, phantom, fire seemed to lick her and Yugi had this strange awareness that all was wrong.

* * *

An hour or two after breakfast a boy snuck up the servant's passage for her.

"Milady!" The little one hissed sticking his head in.

"What?" Yugi bolted upright, beckoning. "What now?"

"The Sultan's called the council," the slave rushed, pushing up against Yugi's chair.

"Which one?" she demanded.

"The whole one!" The child awed. "All the men and all the wives!"

"_What?_" She wheezed, taking the squat little child by the arms. "Have they called up for me? Sent anyone for me?"

"No Milady!" The child yanked his head across side to side stupidly. "The King said _this'll do_ or somethin', I couldn't make it all out his talking low n' so, and then he locked em up in the room with him!"

"_Damn it_." Yugi hissed.

* * *

"You! Boy!"

Atemu could not have been decidedly fouler within himself, furnace churning, legs tight to run and arms strong to swing out as he escaped the suffocation of the council chambers to the mellow whiteness of the arching halls.

A slave pivoted, sitting about on his heels scrubbing the floors most conveniently.

"Up and fetch the Gem Faher!"

His hand found his sword, grasped the hilt hard till the gilding dug into his bare palm and sighing through his teeth gave a pace across the doorway expectantly. The wives milled about, waiting with those sharp hungry eyes of theirs, as the men pottered off to greater business pretending not to be interested. Shoulders knitted, scowling, Atemu leant finally into the wood of the opened door to the council chambers.

It was ten minutes perhaps before the child came running, wheezing, back.

"Sh-she's not-" the child panted throatily, "-about Majesty."

"Not about?" Atemu snapped. "The devil does that mean?"

"Guards say she ain't left her room all morning Sire but she wouldn't answer and when we opened it she was being gone." The boy answered in a rush with his head down and his chest heaving. "We checked and the watchmen say she left to ride within the hour Majesty."

"Left to…?" Atemu's mind summersaulted sliding perfectly, knowingly, into place. Unable to help himself it all slipped out as the glass of his focus cracked; "that infernal bitch!"

Sesset, Mana'jet, the others milling about looked up sharply and biting his tongue Atemu did all he could not to swing out at the child.

"Get me a horse up!" He barked, rounding back upon the nearest clerk and guard. "Get the men to the docks! Get my brothers in!"

The child bolted, almost fell, and swearing Atemu had only taken half a step before the wives were up and upon him.

"What's all this?" Mana coughed.

"Your Lady has run," Atemu snapped at her, "as I should've suspected she has some damn way of disappearing and some little voices to spy for her and has vanished off!"

"_Off?_" Mana gawked.

There was a breath, a horrid silence and-

Sesset laughed, couldn't seem to contain it, and as if it were infectious from stark straight features Kuli twittered and then, lurching, collapsed into it as well with Kisara's help.

"By every god!" Mana made a breathless giggle. "Found yourself a right nasty spot haven't you?"

"What on earth are you simpering about?" He boomed.

"Oh Atemu it should serve you right!" She laughed, cackling. "She's got you for a good chase! Chase you ought to give her considering it all! All your spying and accusing has scared her off into the wilds and you should've having known better!"

"I will drag her back here by her hair for this!" He seethed, crackling as he hit the top of his own voice, malice echoing up and down the hall.

The wives were in hysterics, inconsolable, collapsing into cackles against each other like a horde of hags.

"Off with you then!" Kisara laughed. "After her! Take the hunting dogs!"

"You are all of you damn cads!"

* * *

Yugi had a way of riding that favoured the clear straight, dashing ahead, with her thighs tight against the saddle, her head down and her elbows tucked up against herself. She was accustomed to the bouncing gait of a gallop and the breathlessness of a jump and darting along the river between the cows and the peasants ran ahead under the rising sun creeping towards its zenith.

The c old, teal, West was not an option if a witch hunt was afoot. The boats may not take her with what she had on her and the best of what she had was hidden still waiting to be sent for. Waiting by the docks over the night, by which point Yugi suspected Atemu would be on her trail, was madness: Popes had been caught and killed attempting to flee nations so. There was nothing on the continent but a whole plague of denizen gypsies and throngs of witch burners much more zealous than the Sultan. However likewise crossing the river, waiting for the cataracts to flood or drain, failed to appeal to her.

She took the highway that sat dirty, long and empty stretching towards the forests and the mountains and the mottled deserts where lions died among mangroves. She knew a route and with a little licking at the wind she suspected she might find what she wanted in the wilderness.

The horse heaved and as the hour drained from one to two she was forced to wipe her brow under the folds shielding her face and her head. The horse began to stagger stubbornly, not quite responding, and feeling the hot heave of it under her as the sun reached its burning point Yugi was forced to pull back from driving the beast onward.

In another quarter of an hour or so at her traveller's pace the road she trod along tightened and broadened flexing in tense contractions of sparse to heavy vegetation.

The poor stead trotted weakly round the narrow bend up against the river bank where a few snoring crocodiles rolled their bellies in the mud waiting for a stray hoof or foot and as Yugi came about into a new clear expanse the road was open before her. It undulated down slightly and as she dipped into the valley and cocked her head towards the inland expanse she found it.

* * *

The temple of Eshu situated itself in a valley just before the desert that led to Juras where Mahado was taking his tutelage under the magic men. In the monsoon season the temple ground floor flooded quite purposefully its lower levels consumed by pools as shamans in the upper storeys prayed out the whole rainy season with their horded stocks and charitable donations. It was a quiet kind of life living there waiting to shelter the brave traveller who might make a pilgrimage there during the thickest parts of the rains to please the river god.

Atemu did not consider it intently. He knew of it and as they passed he had some inclination to stop but he was focused upon cutting off the roads into the desert for he believed if the Gem Faher did not try to buck offshore then she would take to Mahado's protection across the desert.

However the afternoon turned quiet. The sun fell in fractions and licking his teeth inside his mouth waiting on the road with his men Atemu thought upon it again. Perhaps, perhaps…

"Zarzak, Falker!" He rallied. "Come with me and leave the rest here."

"Where to dear brother?" Falker teased, grinning. "Are we to inspect all the snake holes and warrens?"

"We are to check the wretch has not sought cover within the temple of Eshu," Atemu barked though they were all of them still too amused to take any heed of him.

The valley sloped in beautifully, thick grass souring to rusted brown but still soft as the horses trampled it underfoot, and as they approached the low walls the ponds flanking them shimmered clear up to the sky.

The shamans, the priests of the Easts, sat about the low walls by the grand entrance. In little clusters they read to each other, sat like lotuses praying under their shrouds on the cool tiles under the veranda, and sung guttural, masculine, hymns just within the darkness of the arch.

Atemu dismounted, his brothers followed, and noticing them several of the shamans sat briskly up to come and take their horses from them.

"May we offer you water noble sir?"

"I am king of the river and I come to see the Head Priest."

They bowed, they exalted and hunching very low asked him to come in from the heat and set his feet up while they fetched the Head Priest from the sanctuary.

Falker and Zarzak lay back in their seats, drank deep from wine bought with generous alms made to the temple, and laughing were utterly unconcerned by this rather wild turn of events. To them it was an amusement, something they would have some larking youth at court write a song about so they could remind Atemu of it in years to come when they were all drunk. To them this chase was exciting, afternoon entertainment, and stiff from it all, embarrassed, Atemu was quick to turn the Head Priest into a quietened chamber.

The old Shaman consented, took him aside, and bowing it seemed upon every exhale he tilted towards Atemu.

"How may we honour your Majesty this fine day?" He supposed. "We have not been expecting such a visit."

"I come searching out a…" Atemu struggled for a word turning his crop over in his hand and twisting the leather audibly. "Has anyone come seeking sanctuary this morning? T'would be a woman: young, white and in our style of dress, very noble, eloquent."

He didn't bother further with the details of the description. The Gem Faher was so stark, so obvious, even this aging man who seemed to hobble upon one foot would notice and remember. There was no need to go into the slenderness of Yugi's wrists or the taunt quality of her shoulders though Atemu knew every detail of her shadow as a lion knew every stride of a gazelle.

"Yes Majesty," the Shaman remarked, gently surprised. "The child's not some fiend is she Sire?"

"No," Atemu sighed though it pained him to do so, "but I must be presented with her. She's to come home."

"Yes, of course," the Head Priest stood a little straighter narrowly meeting Atemu's shoulder with the top of his head. "I know I need not remind your noble Majesty of the sacred tenants of sanctuary. The protection of the gods is a very tender, very special, thing after all and sovereigns are not creatures of brute force by the gods mercy."

"Yes, so indeed," Atemu muttered agreeably but stiffened at the subtle, courtier's, threat. "You will take me to her then?"

* * *

Yugi had put up the horse, had taken a seat within a fine, quiet, atrium and glancing between the sky and the pool of lilied water had cooled her feet to the ankles in the pond. A bead or two of sweat ran down her neck between her shoulder blades but she found herself contented that she would be safe here to rest the night.

She folded her leg across her knee, hooking one over the other, and knew from here she could have her things snuck to her and safer passage out of the country bought eventually. Converted Moor or not she doubted the Sultan was rogue enough to drag her out of a public temple by her hair.

She was surprised however when, startled from her mediations, she found the Head Priest leading the King in by the elbow with a doting servant's humility. Atemu had found her more quickly than she had expected; the hound had a good nose for hunting it so seemed.

"May I chaperon your Majesty's conversation?" The Head Priest offered on behalf of Yugi's engendered chastity and virtue.

"No kind Sir," Atemu dismissed, "you may leave us."

The Shaman, dark as a nut or a seed and just as shrivelled, bowed but made no secret of doing the same for Yugi. The Gem Faher dipped to him, gave a thankful tilt of the chin but did not watch the little man leave as Atemu took the first step forward.

"Tis blasphemy to force me out of here Majesty," Yugi reminded as he approached, "but I suppose you've come to read me charges and make threats?"

"No."

"_No?_" Yugi snorted.

"No. I am not," Atemu stressed, "here to haul you wailing to judgement and the fire."

"Of course," Yugi crooned utterly unconvinced, hooking her arms over each other.

"While, I assure you, I have scoured every avenue I can find nothing to convict you on." He narrowed, turning about in that restless, ambling, way of his all gait in his hips and his shoulders as he flared his nostrils. "Which I am sure you are not at all surprised by given you seem to know everything that occurs in my house before I do."

He cocked his chin, pacing still, and snorting Yugi sighed her aside.

"Perceptiveness is not the same as wickedness."

"And cleverness if not the same as spies." The King scathed.

Yugi took her breath, puffing up, and in the same motion Atemu came to a rather cornered kind of pause. It was, it seemed, as if Yugi's presence was a beating at him turning that wild temper of his savage till rumpled up like he was Yugi could've mistaken the King in his riding gear for a beast upon the savannahs.

"Regardless," Atemu spat, "that's not the point. If I burnt all your co-conspirators I'd have no kingdom."

"Then what is?" Yugi twisted her heel in the stone with an absent motion of her eyes down and up.

"The council will want me to remarry, everyone will want me to remarry," he answered. "I will not however until I am good and ready but that being the case I might as well recruit your wickedness to my cause if I am forced to have you in my home."

"_Ha!_" Yugi scoffed unable to hold it back. It stung to laugh so suddenly at him and his insult.

"You're nigh unshakable when you've got your nose down for something," Atemu drove home the point angrily, "so if any man can harness that beastliness to the plough the fields why shouldn't I? My father had much better luck at the business of it when he did however short lived happiness is in your company!"

"If all you've come for is to insult me then Sir I might as well have never left this morning!"

"You ought not have!" Atemu slammed, hand slapping the hilt of his sword in a reflex action till the fingers tightened round it and Yugi's glance sharpened towards it. "It would've saved me all the business of chasing you the very laughing stock of my kin!"

"You do quite enough to make yourself a laughing stock raging as you do!" Yugi's screech echoed round the atrium as she stood.

Atemu hissed, tangibly, grinding his teeth together very inclined in that instant to strike out in violence. Though, typically, Yugi found that for all his posturing the man was more rabblerouser than true brawler. He had his father's melancholy fussing but none of his aptitude to fly into slashes at an abrupt change of the wind.

"They're insisting you still as a marriage candidate," Atemu grunted, "with a score of well-constructed lawyer's reasons to barricade against me. Given marriage is evidently not about pleasure but business I appear laughably naïve in my resistance to that hardened fact."

"This, Sir," Yugi snapped, "had best not be your proposal."

"I am afraid you will find it is," he rounded back on her eyes flashing, "because if I am compelled by god, kith and kin the least I find that will console is the knowledge that such a union will make you equally_ miserable_."

He came very close, striding in as if he might bite and raising her shoulders Yugi would remain impenetrable in the face of the lashings of the syllables.

"And what if I should not agree to it?"

"Then you are mad," Atemu smirked, "because if I claim to surrender to having you they will hound you. Because if you refuse you sign off the eventual loss of your power and another opportunity for me oust you. Because if you say no then you forfeit the one position which will make you utterly immovable and me utterly wretched."

"Oh but we will _both_ be wretched."

"And both pleased by it."

Yugi's hand rose, index and middle fingers rubbing against her thumb as it came to brush her bottom lip and her eyes were diverted by the flowing scrawl of the mural coated wall scrapping off around them.

There had never been another place Yugi wished to set down roots and call her own home. There had never been such a place that would have her so established. The rains, the river, the monsoons… the whole imagery of it, Yugi's inevitable cycling of witchcraft and guilt was circling round her in her head and spanning the walls. The Temple of Eshu, temple of the River God, was fitting…

It was a prospect unheard of at Yugi's birth but then again the mermaid, witch, _Melusina_ made herself Queen of France so the legend went.

Oh it wasn't about the man, these things never were, but the chance to have the home _hers_, the chance to have the power she already held rightfully_ hers_, the chance to have her surrogate kin her in-laws, to preside over a whole two or three generations of decisions, the chance to be _safe_…

"How am I to be sure you're not lying?" Yugi cautioned herself, regarding the King.

"Because," Atemu warned lilting over it almost lustily, "if I had enough evidence to damn you I would pull you out of here kicking and screaming and not care which gods saw."

"So romantic," she scoffed tartly.

The Lady Anzu flittered, suddenly, into Yugi's thoughts and lowering her hands she regarded the walls with a greater sense of mysticism. Would she want this? She was abhorred by what she perceived as savagery but so willing to sacrifice as she had always been Yugi wondered if she would've allowed this. Was this respectful to her? Hate the sultan Yugi did but inside her was the funniest respect for the woman.

"This is…" Yugi frowned, sighed, shook her head unable to do anything but gaze off to the wall. "This is so you can grieve her longer, yes?"

"That's nothing to you." Atemu snapped in a shocked kind of bitterness that didn't ring very loud just very hollow, very empty, very sad.

"What would she have liked?" Yugi supposed more to herself watching the roll of a wave across the wall. The signs were here for her, things for her to pick up that had fallen so graciously in her lap but she wasn't sure if she wanted the bounty.

"Oh don't talk about her," he begged harshly, "it's easier to find myself if I can hate you the same as I ever did at least."

"Hate me then," Yugi shrugged flippantly, utterly disinterested in him.

"Then marry me," Atemu ordered.

"Heh," she laughed despite herself, "a sadist truly."

"You will find all men are."

"Yes, you call it honour," she sighed. "Fine then, have it, marry me and mourn if it will make you content. Pick your wars with me, scream, favour others and reject me openly and I will promise to hate you and keep things as they are. But," Yugi warned turning back to him, "gather yourself up eventually because you will need a second wife."

"Oh?" Atemu snorted lazily, folding his arms to sigh away, caught like Yugi had been by the light playing off the walls.

"I'll give you a good fight, hold off the council even, take care of things, but I won't give you any children." She answered coolly. "To you I'm barren. You'll get no sons by me. I'll serve you up to that, loyally, but at that gate I'd rather die than pass over the threshold."

Atemu paused, something seemed to cross his face as Yugi turned to it and glancing down the Sultan truly, deeply, considered something before he looked back to the other's face. He was settled, cold as he had ever been, and inhaling softly he let his shoulders drop and his hands fall back by his sides. He never did answer but Yugi didn't suppose he had to. To Atemu the idea was doubtless reprehensible, outrageous, disgusting.

* * *

**Next Time**: blood from god knows where makes its way onto Atemu's sheets, compromises are made for the sake of appearances and very suddenly Atemu begins to frighten himself.


	11. Unifications

Hey Lovelies, I am so sorry for vanishing on you. I've had an insane couple of weeks: illness, twenty-firsts, travelling, a family reunion and the initial exam kept me away on seemingly every Friday as well as busy for the whole day of Friday. However! I am here this week!

* * *

**Chapter 11: Unifications**

"The wives are pleased," Atemu snorted, taking another swig.

"I expect so," Yugi answered absently, sitting at her desk.

Huffing, sighing, Atemu held out his palm to make the delivery that was the sole purpose of his very brief visit. Yugi regarded the ring briefly in the caramel cradle of the man's palm and took it, slipped it on, without any greater inspection than that. It didn't interest her, didn't please her, not with Atemu looking down on her so. She knew however that it was the same ring as Qazzadara's primary wife: Ayesha. Lady Anzu hadn't wanted this ring, from a heathen wedding as she saw it, and in her own gentle way had asked for one Atemu had had made for her.

"I'll be sending the crown jewels over," he informed, "I don't care how you have them reset."

Yugi had enough jewellery, plenty of precious stones too from Qazzadar she planned to have set in new ornaments with a greater allowance eventually provided, but there was a kind of appreciated speciality in the traditional jewels.

She nodded, took a sip.

"Anything else Majesty?" She supposed cradling her own drink.

"No, I don't think so," Atemu sighed before chortling; "unless I suppose you'd like to invite Satan to the wedding upon your side?"

"No I should think he'll be busy," Yugi shot back languidly. "There is one thing though."

"Hmm?" Came the curt sound.

"If it's all the same with you I'd rather keep my current rooms."

She had no interest in spreading to the expansive quarters of the Queen. It wasn't a matter of Anzu's ghost however. Truthfully she did not like the idea of reminding herself that Atemu was occupying the room where Qazzadara had brushed her hair from her temples and put Yugi's head in his lap.

"I'd rather the same myself," Atemu revealed quietly. "I still can't imagine you there."

"You won't have to," Yugi dismissed, setting down her drink and turning back over her book.

* * *

The wedding passed with little incident. Yugi, apparently utterly converted to the polytheism of the East regarded the whole ceremony with a kind of solemn traditionalism mirrored more by Atemu's family than himself. His last wedding, though in private, Atemu had enjoyed as a ceremony under what he considered his new God. Though this one was more in keeping with his native stripe it…

They made very little eye contact during the process. Yugi appeared at worst to be making vows to the shaman and at best to be making them off to Atemu's brothers smiling to the Gem Faher in the front row. Frankly Atemu preferred when Yugi made tender, affectionate, eye contact with Mahado, their triumphant guest, but the sensation of being passed right through began to bother him.

Towards the end of the morning, hands tied, Yugi began to wind a little tighter at the impending, inevitable, close to proceedings. The climatic, finalizing, wedding kiss was something of the last century, imported, but as an affectionate culture the East had quite taken to the gesture.

Atemu for his part didn't like the claustrophobic feel of Yugi's hand limp and recoiling against his as he squeezed the two smallest fingers reflexively. The last chant began, Yugi glanced to the pews, to Kisara, Mana'jet and Mahado doubtless, but Atemu took the moment to actually, however briefly, consider the creature before him.

Today was a day where with her face flexing between darkened moments of sombre maturity and lighter flutters of smiling softness Yugi was not ugly. Atemu had never gotten much chance to see Anzu comfortable in the dress of his homeland but Yugi appeared as if she'd always worn it. She was comfortable with it, with everything, with that grace and that elegant prideful strength Europe abhorred and the East adored. Yugi smiled briefly at something or someone over Atemu's shoulder and lips parting upward a tiny flicker of teeth spied into view.

Atemu tilted his head, found something in how the light scrapped the cheekbone and gaze flickering, distracted by the movement, Yugi appeared almost startled to find Atemu looking her over. Her whole face tightened out of that milky freshness. Little fish swam up and down Atemu's back in the oddest, most childish, inclination that struck him at once.

Yugi had always, luckily, been someone else's. Atemu had never wanted her but she was confessedly handsome in her own perfectly natural, perfectly diabolical and misleading way. Atemu knew, only just, what the briefest touch from the witch felt like and he was struck by a curiosity.

The chant finished Yugi looked still to be dissecting his face and given the commanding cue from the shaman Atemu took the opportunity to see was kissing her was like.

Yugi turned steely, sucked in and straight up, with her hands coiled as little fists on Atemu's chest. Atemu's arm secured, fastened, round her waist and his fingers scrapping through thick clean hair helped press the smaller, narrower, body into his. Everything was narrower, smaller and harder than Anzu had been, utterly unyielding, but the smell was sweet and the lips were soft as Atemu bruised down against her almost passionately.

It was brief, violently churned his stomach with a sudden unaccustomed and improper heat, and before Atemu could savour it the kiss was over. It would've, might've, been longer if Yugi hadn't forced him back viciously. A kind of affronted expression passed over the pale face, like a shadow, and momentarily Atemu suspected Yugi would hit him because she quite evidently wanted to.

* * *

Yugi ignored Atemu for the remainder of the luscious festivities. The distance the witch set down between them was rigorous and carried with it an assumed disgust. Yugi repelled from his touch, his passing, his voice, but skilled a courtier as she was the little witch could plant herself purposefully across the grand hall without anyone noticing she'd come no closer to Atemu than five feet all evening.

Yugi danced with Seth, with Falker, and at least three times with Mahado. Seth made her laugh but after lifting her off her feet and swinging her round when Mahado lowered the Gem Faher back to her feet Yugi's arms sunk tenderly, almost desperately, round his shoulders to cleave into the man. Atemu turned his mouth into his palm and, disgusted slowly in himself, was tempted. He supposed it shouldn't surprise him: _of course_ witches tasted good.

Timaeus, bowing thrice and asking once, apparently secured a dance of his own with the Sultana. Yugi laughed gently at him and very prim let Timaeus try stiffly to swing her round. The Ryussian ambassador however, like with so many finer things, had no feet for dancing and appeared constantly at odds with his toes. Yugi led.

Atemu however had no shortage of good conversation of sincere congratulations from where he was watching. His kith and kin were very pleased, _very_ pleased indeed, with the turn of events and he had so many kisses on his cheek, so many children put dotingly in his lap for approval that he realized they'd seemingly forgiven him for his evident conversion away from tradition.

A little past midnight they were stripped down and put into the blessed wedding bed.

Yugi's hands folded in her lap, eyes ahead, but the exhaustion and the tightness stretched all along her jaw showed till eventually Atemu's winking brothers and whispering sisters filed out.

The witch sighed, eyes closing briefly, and slipping her legs out brushed hair from her face to traipse towards the still burning fire.

"I'll leave in a little while," Yugi answered, slumping into the fireside seat resting her head back.

Her eyes closed and…

Sighing, shaking his own head, Atemu lay back down with his hands behind his head.

"Do what you like."

* * *

When Atemu rolled over in the middle of the night, arm hanging gently over the cusp of the mattress, he spotted Yugi curled asleep in the chair by the fire with her head on the arm rest looking tiny and pale and soft.

When Atemu woke in the morning however blinking groggily at the overarching panels of the four poster she was gone.

He tutted and wasn't quite sure why he wasn't pleased. He ached though, not for the witch but… Anzu had this very gentle way of breathing and waking. She used to kiss the bridge of his nose in the morning as he struggled to consciousness. She had the softest hands. He missed the warmth of another body snug next to his, he missed knowing she was breathing in the night…

He closed his eyes as his throat began to do the same.

Twisting to the empty bedside he jolted.

On the table sat his dagger, unsheathed, and on the bed, where the blankets had been tugged back, a little patch of blood smeared on the linen.

Heart settling back Atemu slumped into the pillows again. Damn wily witch had taken it upon herself to fake the evidence of consummation. It was insurance of sorts, usefulness of another and nose in the pillows Atemu wondered how the little wasp had managed it while he slept. He couldn't somehow imagine Yugi flinching as she dragged the blade along her own skin. It seemed too weak for the creature.

It was the closest they ever came to a proper moment of privacy with each other. In the morning after, at breakfast, Atemu was not sure if he would adjust to the new station of Yugi beside him. As Yugi seemed prepared to stand, to flitter off neglecting much of the meal, Atemu caught her nearest hand and tugging turned the palm up to his inspection. Yugi yanked it back but Atemu had seen enough to know there was no cut in the skin.

"The other hand then?" He accused lazily.

"I'm subtler than that," she snorted.

He frowned, knew not quite what that meant but too intrigued for his own tastes made a point of looking away and not thinking about it. Though images considering where the witch had dragged the blade upon herself in the dark night did occur…

* * *

What settled next over the kingdom was a dreadful kind of peacefulness which Atemu endured uncomfortably. The Lesser Council were settled, with that their husbands in the Greater Council easy going, and there was a flourishing refreshed mood across the next month which Atemu abhorred.

Under a heathen to two religions his homeland was peaceful. It was perhaps not as irritating to Atemu as a whole but the details of it when broken down all carried a little pincer. No man likes to have upon him something he did not want to begin with despite, or especially because, everyone else's insistence he ought to enjoy it, because it seemed just his size and flattering. Worse, worse… Anzu...his mind stuttered over messily when she dredged up inside it like a corpse rising from the soil, she…

She was so European. She was so Western. She appealed to his re-education, his conversion, his new manners and practices. She was soft, an image of European gentleness and Madonna virtues. Never outspoken, never rough, never blunt or too obvious or too forward or coarse or acidic or…

Yugi, long enamoured in the eyes of Atemu's clan, proved to be _such_ a traditionalist. The jewels were reset back to how they had been styled during the time of Atemu's mother and somehow the foreign, milky, form of the witch had the shoulders to wear them well.

Without Anzu's mediation or the burden of having to service Atemu directly the Gem-Faher, now Sultana, took to the old services and festivities with a kind of vicious zeal. They danced louder, feasted longer, worked harder and every morning after an enforced communal bath (which the Sultana expected the visiting ladies and carriers to consort in) there were services in the temple. Not the grand, sombre, ones of Christian Europe either. No it was all the pagan singing, clapping, chanting, burning and play preforming of Atemu's heathen childhood bought back to fully realized detail for the Gem-Faher's contentment.

Anzu was always in his heart as an embodiment of what Atemu had come to see as the enshrined goal of the gentler sex. Like some idol of the Virgin Mother Anzu took to what Europeans believed the lesser sex should be, what was natural to them; she wrote sonnets, she stayed far aside from business, tried to run a peaceful household, yielded, sewed… to Atemu's memory her good qualities came as a mixture of examples and real qualities but the point remained.

Yugi rode often, took picnics and smokes to follow after the hunting parties or the usual gladiatorial displays that were contrast to the knightly jousting of Europe. She invested personal fortune in endeavours, never asked permission and didn't fear retribution. She was opinionated and brazen about it. She made ers shoulders stronger, gave orders and demanded the respect of men rather than the adoration more natural between the sexes. Yugi had the boldness very natural to the subordinate sex of Atemu's homeland. It was perhaps why the natives, Atemu's people, took to her despite her being no one of any birth.

Worse still was the attempted façade of normalcy they tried to perpetuate between each other for the sake of appearances. Known hatred or not the appearance of an unhappy, vicious, marriage was not becoming to any man or wife.

They had breakfasts together perhaps weekly because they weren't meals that tended to linger. Yugi planned to arrive a little wet from the baths just as the sun was grey because it was as late as Atemu could eat before he had to leave for meetings.

Yugi's focus tended to be the windows. She never really seemed to eat anything of any real merit. Atemu tried, lazily, to focus on the meal. It was a process thing for him, something he had to do and something he had to get through. He needed to eat and if that kept him from conversation Atemu would become very diligent about his breakfast.

It was tenuous, bitter, on the nights Yugi made some pretence of supposedly coming to Atemu's rooms to copulate.

On the first occasion Yugi wore two dressing gowns, one grey and plain underneath peeking its collar out from under the ebbing blue and gold embroidered second layer, as if the very idea of stripping down made her feel disastrously naked already.

Atemu was too tired for it.

"Have the bed," he ordered, scrapping up a recently shipped bible from Britton.

"No."

It was almost jolting to be denied so abruptly. Atemu had conversed with kings who pushed him aside more genteelly.

"Don't be ridiculous," he scathed.

"I'll take the daybed," Yugi more informed rather than suggested, folding the dressing gowns tighter.

"It's not cursed, yet, you can sleep there for a night without injury."

"If I do," she drawled, "it's going to smell like me tomorrow. Would you like that?"

Atemu recoiled gently torn between insult and genuine disgust, his chest brazenly exposed compared to the tucked up tiny figure of the Gem-Faher resting on her bare toes in the doorway.

"I didn't think so." Yugi murmured, joylessly victorious.

Sighing, momentarily defeated, Atemu slumped onto the bed as traipsing by him mindlessly Yugi found a seat reclining near the window. She was always near windows it seemed, in rays of the dawn or the moon she stationed herself sighing off as if the tiny witch was waiting for some better lord husband to return home.

"I have to ask you, though I don't like to," Yugi prefaced a moment of uncomfortable silence later as Atemu scathed at the arch of the ceiling above him. "Do you know what mischief Lord Timaeus is up to?"

"Hmm? Timaeus?" Atemu grunted pushing up onto his elbows.

"He's been peculiar," Yugi slipped one hidden leg over the other under the folds. "He asked me yesterday if I would give my blessings when he married."

"Married? To _whom?_"

"I don't know," she sighed tightly, "he dismissed it, told me he wasn't sure yet. Has he asked after anyone?"

"No," Atemu sat himself almost a bit straighter suspiciously.

"Hmm," Yugi shuffled down across the room, toes rolling over each other. "I suspect then he's mad for someone he shouldn't be. One of your cousins maybe…?"

"Perhaps it would be a good thing," he mumbled.

Yugi pinched her lips together, frowned, and turning Atemu over in her glance seemed confused before it all fell back to a kind of pitying foreignness the Sultan didn't appreciate.

"_What?_" Atemu snapped refusing to let it dissipate without notice.

"Nothing," Yugi cut stubbornly, twisting onto her side.

Groaning Atemu fell back into the bed bitterly.

* * *

It was order they established but not necessarily a pleasant one. In the ensuing six months after Anzu's… Atemu…

Left alone Atemu found his mind wandered off to misery and he had hoped an excuse to screech at Yugi, to loathe her, would distract but the witch took, at odd intervals, to making those pitying eyes Atemu felt miniscule under. It did nothing to help rebuild his sense of purpose, his sense of honour, and the sight he turned to, every few days, of Yugi gazing away scratched irritably.

Queerly Timaeus had taken to asking Yugi to dance very frequently. Though from Atemu's vantage Timaeus never seemed to get very far in luring the Sultana into conversation of any great length.

The sexes mingled by rather strict regulations here families were notoriously informal but a man of no relation settling himself too close or too often with someone of the opposing sex was frowned upon by all male kin of the individual girl or woman.

Atemu himself enjoyed Timaeus' witty recollections about battlefields and politics but anything finer, anything more delicate, and the Ryussian was useless.

Timaeus was harmless however wether he danced with Atemu's bitter little wife most nights or not. He was mad for some pretty thing here, probably trying to barter someone who'd argue in his favour by endearing himself to the Queen. That was Atemu's suspicion.

Some of the others…

Atemu frowned, resting his cheek into his knuckles and regarded the angle of the latest conversation Yugi was engaging in with another ambassador. The French seemed to have taken a liking to her sharp tongue and proud posture, the Portuguese and Spaniards even more feverishly.

Atemu would admit there was something quite entrancing about the tiny, white as china, Queen among the savages with her mystical control upon the order of court and her effortless dialectic mastery. He could see why the Europeans would cleave to Yugi as a port of high society in a sea of strange customs. The witch was a good cultural bridge. Anzu had charmed the ambassadors in her own way; humble, a right virgin goddess, with her tiny feet and her sweet voice she rather embodied patience, charity, and grace. Such…such noble things however were only so amusing. Yugi's snips, her fearlessness to explain what she thought and her stubbornness to relent from her opinion, were however consistently entertaining to the Europeans.

Atemu didn't think he minded. He shouldn't of. If the witch spread her cold, nasty, legs for someone else Atemu would have an excuse to eradicate her. Though he found that anger, hatred, lust and pleasure had been mostly squashed out him lately to make room for quiet, underlying, grief.

They had an array of beautiful creatures at court this evening. Atemu attempted to focus on them but… he sighed very tightly and felt small. They were never going to be her. The way she lay against him those nights in the inn by the docks, wooing her first among the Brits, her father slapping his back, the tiny strange white-burnt baby she'd given him out of complete love the…

Atemu tried to breathe a little fuller in his seat, his feet too heavy.

Across the hall the Spanish ambassador tried to put his arm round the witch's waist and slipping out of the grip Yugi appeared to make a hard faced joke about the matter while placing herself out of reach and closer to Timaeus.

An impulse struck as Atemu caught the look in the Spaniard's eye and a little nip came over him.

Atemu left his brothers, the white ladies who liked to lean towards him like buzzards over a weak dog, and stepping down from the dais wasn't quite sure what he was doing till his hand settled heavy on the back of Yugi's neck and made the smaller spin.

"Majesty!" Yugi gasped, laughing coyly without any real happiness, "you scared me."

It was all appearances of happiness. Atemu shouldn't have felt anything, Yugi surely didn't given the steel hiding in her eyes but now much closer to the witch he called wife now Atemu found he felt fractionally warmer, less dead, than he had a second ago.

"Come dance with me," Atemu ordered, arm falling to hold fast about the narrow waist despite how Yugi's navel sucked in away from his hand.

"Dance…?" Yugi mumbled, visibly sickened just beneath the surface but unawares of their Sultana's suspicious, distrusting, nature the ambassadors smiled and lowered their noses as if embarrassed, as if they'd been caught wooing or doting.

"Yes," Atemu snorted with vague impatience. He hid his mouth behind Yugi's hair and against her ear whispered; "it involves feet and music. Perhaps you've heard of it in Hell?"

Yugi frowned and slapping Atemu's chest could've been mock offended by some perversion of a whispering hungrier husband had not her eyes been so sharp. The ambassadors chuckled however none the wiser. Huffing, eyes almost rolling, Yugi allowed Atemu to pull her out onto the tiles.

Atemu had his hand on Yugi's waist, considering the motion of cupping the hip in his hand, for less than half a turn before the witch was whispering at him.

"And what's this about then?" Yugi confronted.

"Do I have to have a motive?"

"You tend to."

Like this, faces close enough to call each other foul names without anyone catching on, Atemu had a distraction.

There was a niggle of heat as he considered his answer and sighing forward Atemu's mouth rested lazily into Yugi's frowning, uncomfortable, brow.

"There's something irritating about other men trying to make you happy," he decided to settle for given it sounded nasty enough.

Yugi snorted but wasn't amused.

"They don't make me happy," she answered, "you all want something and your sex tends to become violent at a moment's notice."

"Do you ever get tired of being so cold?" Atemu rasped against his brow. "The interplay of genders is supposed to be one of the greatest pleasures in life. You're supposed to _want_ it."

"Do the sexes make you happy?" Yugi rumbled back in a tiny little hiss. "Do you like this? Do you like the way loving someone then has made you feel now? Do you want me to fall into the arms of some idiot while I'm already married?"

"Have you ever loved anything apart from yourself?" He shot back just as hotly under his breath pressing Yugi closer into his arms as if he liked her there. In eerie, unsettling, way he felt much warmer, his gut coiling, as the other's weight was trapped nearer.

"You think I'm ambitious, I think I'm protective," was the curt explanation. "There aren't any men I think are worth falling in love with anymore. I was born out of sync with them. I agreed to you because this way I can keep close to a place I consider my true home. I love this place, whatever you think of it, and these people."

"Hardly selfless are you?"

"Are you?" Yugi hissed. "You do things just because of how you feel, to hell with everyone else, you have no right to call me the selfish one."

Yugi's hands had slipped to his clavicle and as one curled into a fist it slapped against his collar bone with a little less force than the Gem-Faher visibly would've liked when Atemu met her eyes. He must've looked apathetic because the very well framed face just below him looked angrier.

"You can think whatever you want of me, you can hate me, but it's useless." Yugi murmured. "I won't lose things I decide to cling to, not for anything, and even if you never trust me I still have a _thousand_ things I can scream at you. You are not on enough of a pedestal to insult me."

Atemu watched, they did half a turn on the tiles music rolling on slowly for them because the musicians were afraid to stop when they glanced so intensely at each other and Atemu…

Every word was a knot, tighter, tighter, and nearly nose to nose that new sense of expectation, of permission, that came from the eyes watching them… Yugi's hands had rested momentarily idle on his clavicle, Atemu's had found her waist, but they uncurled and slipping started to move back into more proper, more dismissive, positions. Something about the feline curve of her jaw, the improper scent of the perfume, the dignity of her narrowed eyes…

For a split second Atemu was hungry, dangerously, that knot of almost warmth exploding into heat and just as he became aware of it his stomach rebelled horribly. He wanted, just like he had not so long ago, to crush that cool little body up against his again and try and make it as hot as his insides had smelted to but…

He recoiled, surprised and disgusted at himself, and remembered…

Oh God Anzu, his played with father, his enthralled siblings, his _dead child_…

They were all, at least in his opinion, this_ thing's_ fault.

His father had refused to speak with him, refused to bless him, and dying had done so with Yugi while Atemu, his son, was crying in a hallway wishing he could see Qazzadara for a final second.

And he…now…

Atemu was furious at himself. In a second he seemed to realize that, as truly as Yugi loathed her, the witch honestly didn't seem to understand her own attractiveness. It was a funny kind of attraction, insidious, not the normal Christian longing to love, cherish and hold but that most feral instinct to conquer.

He untangled, pulled, perhaps pushed by the tiny hands pressing off him and given that flicker of permission Yugi lurched back away from him like a rabbit that had been waiting to dart for horribly long moments.

He left, burning and frothing he left.

* * *

Atemu, after whatever funny little ghost has descended upon him, had utterly refused to keep up their illusion of a proper marriage. Oh he'd stand the bare minimum in the next week but there were no more private meals, no more faked visits to the bed chamber, and the fact Yugi was still in her old chambers slowly became public knowledge though Atemu seemed so set on something that he didn't appear to care.

Yugi….

She sighed, smiling as an easy kind of swoon coming over her about a week later. As he retracted she felt freer. She tangled her fingers together excited as her silent friend the guard hefted the second of two large chests up the servant's passage and helped Yugi hide them in her rooms.

"Thank you my friend," Yugi grabbed his elbow, kissing the pitch black shoulder as it passed. "Thank you."

The man didn't really form a proper expression, didn't smile certainly, but he let Yugi pet him briefly and helped, almost absently, to sweep up the dirt that had fallen off the recently unburied chests hidden for the duration of Yugi's witch hunt.

"Thank you," Yugi repeated crouching to pick up the clumps of deep black earth into her own palm just as mindlessly. "I could ask no one else to help me hide them."

The guard stood, helping Yugi to her feet and bowing deep began without another word to disappear back down the passage he had snuck up through.

"If you ever have need of me," Yugi promised to the fine line of his spine, "please don't hesitate to ask."

A noble, silent, creature his guard disappeared without any confirmation. Sighing, happy in a flourishing kind of way Yugi tucked her hair back and grinning darted back to unlock the chests.

"Oh yes…" She laughed.

She felt now there had been enough time since the witch hunt and the marriage for her to sneak the worst of her contraband back into the palace.

A great deal of it was gifts from Qazzadara: books, a personal fortune should the Sultan rip her's from her, and the rest were heirlooms, tools, for the witchcraft Atemu always accused her of but had never caught her in the act of. This was a treasure trove of that sin.

There was an old, old, handmade wooden doll her grandmother had used to torture a few torch wielding villagers in retaliation for their burning Yugi's great-aunt. She kissed it. It was harmlesly disguised as a children's plaything in a little sewn frock. She put it back in the trunk filled with separating boxes and ran her fingers along the rims of the stacked pewter bowls in the corner still in one piece. Beautiful things they were, wrapped in a few of her best saris for padding, and sighing she felt like herself again now her tools were back.

She'd come to the East with much less than she had now but in these things she counted as her best possessions now were precious fragments of the motherland. She could go back to her old prayers, at least in private, singing out the ones of the East loudly and sincerely during the day. None of this meant that Yugi loved the gods of the East any less than the old spirits her ancestors had always called on. It was just she was not quite herself without both spirits.

She stood, picked up the doll again, and cradling it in both hands smiled down inspecting it.

The door an ante-chamber away pounded abruptly.

Yugi jolted, almost dropped the doll but with fierce instincts dug her nails in to hold it tighter as she spun.

"The Sultan for Milord," a clerk called from the hall.

Swearing Yugi shambled to stuff the tiny thing back in the trunk and lock it with a final kiss to the stiff ringlets. Panicking she tossed the keys ricocheting off into the darkness under the bed. As they scrapped along the tiles out of view she straightened herself, already striding, trying to work out the creases and whatever traces of dirt might be cloying to her saris.

Yugi straightened again, inhaled, stood taller, and tapping her side of the double doors told the tongueless guards they could open the chamber.

Atemu was in before they'd opened all the way, like a cat slinking into the back of a caravan, and pushing his foot back against the door had the guards begin closing it before they'd finished the motion of opening it.

Yugi took half a step back on reflex. Something about Atemu was steely tight, coiled a little too tense and inhaling he had those wild, dangerous, eyes of his.

"What's all this then?" Yugi supposed. She could accuse the Sultan of barging in at an ungodly hour but she'd lost some of those rights when she'd consented to marrying the maniac.

"I'll be taking some of the lords and a portion of our forces in the morning," Atemu informed, skirting past her into Yugi's dim lit rooms cradling his elbows. "I wanted you to be aware."

"Why?" Yugi turned, grasping one elbow on her slacker arm, following the nervous, brisk, pace of the king as he wandered to five feet further into the rooms.

"There's been a raid along the border with Sacrene," he sighed tensely, "a pack of useless marauders pillaging farm land."

"That's a small thing to merit you going directly," Yugi frowned stiffly as she cocked one hip a little further out. She was suspicious though, as always, she wasn't quite sure what she suspected Atemu to be up to.

"I suspect the Sacrians are testing our amiability," Atemu was stripping his gloves as a distraction wringing them between his fingers, "I want to crush it very publically. Show that we are not afraid. I'll leave enough here to keep the palace safe."

"Well I'd expect," she shrugged, unconcerned. "Still you could send your brothers for that."

"I want an adventure. A man likes to stick his sword into something every now and again," the king supplied grunting over the implication, almost crude but perhaps unintentionally. He yawned suddenly, without meaning to, into his hand and brushing his face sighed. "Also…"

"_Also?_" Yugi stressed both arms folding. What now?

"I want the Lesser Council to start choosing a selection of secondary wives," he decided firmly. "I have no intention of moving yet, or soon really, but I think it's best to think ahead on that."

"Well it was supposed to be my wedding present," she joked dryly.

Atemu sighed, eyes rolling back subtly as if she were impossible and her sass unnecessary.

"I suspect I won't see you for a few weeks."

"Heavens," Yugi remarked in the same lazy deadpan, "think we can manage being apart for ever so long?"

"I expect everything to be just as it is when I get back," Atemu warned tart but without any real passion.

"I'll only convert your cousins to Satanism."

* * *

1 Yep so that's what Yugi's guard was hiding.  
2 Next update will either be in a fortnight or next week. Hopefully not in a month! I'm sorry again guys. It's a busy time. My birthday's next week!

**Next Time**: Yugi discusses the meaning of Gem-Faher and a year into their marriage Atemu makes a mutually uncomfortable request.


End file.
